


The Art of Being a Parent

by Aerex35



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, How Do I Tag, Iron Dad, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Some angst, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, oops i hurt them, pepperony is kinda a background thing in this but it's there, some violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-05-07 02:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14661717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aerex35/pseuds/Aerex35
Summary: Basically just Tony Stark becoming Iron Dad. Timeline is from post-CACW to pre-IW (spoiler free for IW)





	1. Sleep is for the Weak

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing this to cope with the pain from Infinity War  
> If anyone would like to give me suggestions for how to write Rhodey better when it comes to his disability, I'd be happy to hear it! I am an able-bodied person and I make mistakes like everyone else, so feel free to call me out on my shit if I do something wrong.

               The metal thud of his feet hitting the rooftop had become familiar to the occupants of the Avengers base to the point where most didn’t even look up anymore. Today, however, Rhodey had been sitting in one of the many lounges in the base, waiting for the arrival of his longtime friend.

               “Hey, man. What took you so long? You were out for hours.” Rhodey asked as Tony stepped inside, his suit folding up.

               “If a day and a half still counts as ‘hours’. What, have you been waiting for me this whole time?” He walked over to a counter where a basket of fruit was sitting and grabbed an apple.

               Rhodes shrugged. “Not much else I could do. I think one of the wires is loose or something because they just stopped working.” He made a gesture towards the device that had been strapped to his legs.

               “Jesus, Rhodey. You must be starving.” Tony handed him the apple and kneeled down, examining the device he had made just weeks earlier. “Well, I’m going to have to take it in to the shop. Sorry Rhodes, but that model just isn’t ready yet.”

               He shrugged and took a bite from the apple. “Yeah, I’d kinda guessed that from how many times I fell on my ass. And I’ve had food, don’t worry. I’m lucky you leave snacks all over the place in case you get hungry midway through a rant about how dumb we all are.”

               “Great, now will you stop complaining about the food everywhere?”

               “It’s still weird leaving food lying around. People live here, Tony.” Despite his comments, Rhodes took several more bites out of the apple.

               “Yeah, and people need food to live, so really, I’m just helping you guys out. Here, let’s get you up to your room,” Tony said, placing an arm around Rhodes, preparing to help him up.

               “Tony, I’m not letting you carry me up two flights of stairs.”

               “No, I’m not carrying you.” He flicked his hand and a couple pieces of Iron Man armor came and attached to Rhodey’s hands and feet. “What do I look like?”

               “A dumbass.”

               “...Yeah alright I think I deserve that one. Don't remember what for but there's something, isn't there. Alright, come on.”

               It took some time, but the suit helped. When they finally reached Rhodey’s room, Tony had him lie down so he could detach the device from his legs.

               “So, are you going to tell me why you were out?”

               “Uh,” Tony looked out the window. “Yeah, screw it, no point in keeping it a secret. We sold Avengers’ Tower.”

               “Wow, out of all the things I was prepared to hear you say, that surprisingly wasn’t on the list,” Rhodey remarked.

               “Yeah I wonder why.”

               “So... is there a reason why you sold it? Or, better, a reason why anyone would pay for the most expensive skyscraper in New York?”

               Tony sighed. “I don’t know what they’re planning on doing with it; I just wanted to get rid of it. I... things are changing, and it felt like time to ditch it. Too public, too easy to ambush or some BS like that. Besides, we already do pretty much everything here, why not just completely relocate?”

               Rhodes looked at Tony and smirked. “Yeah, this is your newest way of coping?”

               “You know me too well. Alright, yes. It is, I guess.”

               There was a sound of something crashing beneath them, and Rhodey jumped. “What was that?”

               “Calm down, they’re just building a new room downstairs. Right below your room, that should be fun.”

               “What? Why fun? What’s being made down there?”

               Tony sighed again. “You remember the kid?”

               “The one in the red tights? Wait...” He looked at Tony straight in the eye. “No. No, you are not putting a teenager in a room on the base, especially not right below me.”

               “Well,” Tony responded. He looked really tired, Rhodey was just now noticing. He probably hadn’t slept for days, falling back into his old habits from whenever the PTSD was too hard to handle. “Kid might be an Avenger when he’s a little older, has some more experience. When he is he’ll need a place to stay. Might as well prep for it now, no point in waiting.”

               “Tony, have you even seen the kid since Germany?”

               “Happy’s keeping an eye on him.”

               “Sure. How old was he? Six?” Rhodey finished the apple and tossed it towards a trashcan, missing by a few inches. It fell to the floor and rolled away and Rhodey sighed out of resignation.

               “How am I supposed to know how old he is?”

               “Right. Look, Tony, I know you have this need to be busy after things like... like what happened with Cap happen, but remodeling the whole second floor of the base because you’ve suddenly grown attached to one kid? Doesn’t that seem like a little much?”

               “I’m not attached to the kid. He was just... useful in the fight. And I might as well let him keep the suit, he’s not doing any harm.”

               Rhodey struggled but pushed himself up so he could see Tony better. “Well, if you really think he should keep the suit, why don’t you try learning his name first?”

               “I know his name.”

               “Yeah? What is it, then?”

               “...Paco. Perry?”

               Rhodey laughed. “You’re a mess, Tony. Go get some sleep.”

               “Nope. I am going to fix _this_ ,” He began folding up the device that had temporarily given Rhodey the ability to move, “And then I’ll consider sleeping.”

               “Nobody can survive on pure caffeine, Tony!” Rhodes called as Tony picked up the device and left the room.

               “Well, it hasn’t killed me yet!”

               Rhodey shook his head and chuckled. “You’re insane.”

               “Thanks for the reminder!”

\---

               The familiar rhythm of assembling, testing, redesigning, and assembling again was soothing. Sure, it wasn’t a suit, but it might as well have been. Tony had just taken the wireframe of the bottom portion of the suits and modified it to support more dead weight. Sometimes he thought that he might be subconsciously messing up something this simple because he didn’t want to be stuck with nothing to do. But he also wanted Rhodey to be able to walk. He was stuck in stalemate.

               Connecting, disconnecting, moving parts around and screwing pieces together. It was comforting, being back to just making things. While he did, he let his mind settle on the new kid. Peter was his name, he knew that. He just didn’t want Rhodes to know that he knew.

               He wasn’t entirely sure why Peter had caught his attention. There were plenty of other rumors about enhanced individuals that he could have investigated, but for some reason he really wanted to know more about Spider-Man. Maybe it was because someone with a severely low budget was trying to do the most he could with what little he had that had grabbed Tony’s interest. Maybe it was the hot aunt, not that he knew that before he’d found Peter. Maybe...

               Maybe it was the fact that Peter was a kid. He was a kid who ran around putting himself in dangerous situations with nothing but a pair of pajamas and swim goggles. He needed an upgrade, but not because Tony needed him to fight against Cap (although that definitely was part of it). No, Tony knew that Peter wouldn’t stop, just like he hadn’t stopped years ago when he’d decided to destroy his weapons. He could make Peter a suit, a real one. One that could at least give him some help, instead of leaving him alone in a onesie to try to figure out what being a hero really dealt with.

               Helping a kid though... that was scary. Tony didn’t know how to deal with kids, at least in a sense other than saving them once and never seeing them again. Now he’d given a teenager Happy’s phone number? He was building an entire room for him on the base?

               Tony knew he could mess this up, big time. He could hurt the kid, break him. Not intentionally, of course, but... he didn’t want to turn out like his dad.

               Maybe it would be better to just leave the kid alone, now. He’d originally planned to train the kid every so often, teach him the skills that Tony had learned after 8 years of being Iron Man. But now that he had time to think... it was probably better if he stayed out of it. He couldn’t mess up if he did that. Yeah.

               Tony glanced up at the time and blinked a few times. There was no way it was 5:43 PM, he’d gone down into his workshop at 7:24 PM. So unless almost a full day had passed...

               “FRIDAY, how long have I been down here?”

               “ _22 hours and 19 minutes._ ” The artificial voice of his assistant surrounded the room.

               He stood up too quickly and almost passed out. He needed to go to sleep. And eat. He’d have to think about the kid later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Try to tell me Rhodey isn't able to get away with teasing Tony. I dare you.  
> I'll see where I go with this. I don't know how often I will be able to update but there are definitely more chapters coming.  
> Thanks for reading!


	2. We Worry About People We Care About

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA basically Tony's feelings throughout all of Homecoming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not as satisfied with this one, but it needed to be written. Now that this chapter is out of the way, I can explore some more things. Peter will be in the next chapter, I promise!  
> 

Tony was down in his workshop once again. He had barely left it recently, finding that it was easier to build than confront the fact that he was lonely.

Lying in front of him were two suits. The first one was a prototype for an idea he’d had for the kid in the middle of the night a couple days ago. The second one was a remake of a concept for an Iron Man suit he had used years ago. The practical benefits of a suit he could control while on the opposite side of the world were too great for him to ignore any longer.

The Iron Man suit had almost been finished. Tony just needed to adjust a few more things, and the suit would be able to operate remotely. The spider suit, on the other hand, would need some more time. Unfortunately, he had accepted an invitation to a wedding halfway around the globe and would have to leave by that night to make it on time- a habit he was trying to get into.

FRIDAY set of an alarm to remind Tony to take a break. He sat down and stared at the work he had been doing, his mind spiraling in a thousand different directions at once. What if something happened while he was gone? What if the suit doesn’t work? What if the kid does something dumb? What if, what if, what if?

There was a loud vibration and Tony jumped. He looked down to see his phone, the screen lit up with an announcement that Happy was calling. He hesitated for a moment before picking up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Tony, there you are. Hey, do you mind telling the kid to stop bothering me? I’m busy preparing for moving day and my phone is going off every two seconds.” Happy seemed irritated.

“What? Why is he calling you that much, did something happen?” Tony asked. He felt a short jolt of panic. He was responsible for the kid, so if something happened...

“No, it’s mostly texting. He keeps asking about his ‘next mission’,” Tony could hear the air quotes, “and giving me nightly reports.”

“And are you answering him?”

“What am I supposed to say, Tony? ‘Good job helping the old lady who bought you a churro, Peter’?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I want you to do.” Tony was beginning to wonder if Happy was the right person for this job. Probably not. No, scratch that. Definitely not.

Happy groaned. “Why can’t you make FRIDAY handle this? I’m busy with moving day.”

“FRIDAY is busy helping me.” Lie. “Besides, the kid needs interaction with an actual person.” Anyone except for Tony. He kept telling himself that interaction between him and Peter would lead to disaster, which was most likely true.

“Why, though?”

“Because if he doesn’t get it, he’ll stop calling, and stop asking permission to do things, and he’ll get in trouble!” Tony was starting to panic again. His fears, which he hadn’t been able to confront, were now surfacing. “And if he gets in trouble, that’s our fault!”

Happy was silent for a minute. Tony half-hoped that Happy would just end the call so that Tony didn’t have to deal with this anymore. But after a moment, he said, “Alright, I’ll answer the phone. Are you happy now?”

Tony sighed and slumped over slightly in relief. “Yes. Thank you, Happy.” He paused, and when Happy didn’t say anything else, he added, “Keep me updated,” and hung up. He set down his phone and slumped back into his chair.

“Sir, you must leave to catch your flight in 30 minutes,” FRIDAY informed him. He stood up and went back to work, fixing a few more things before having to leave on his trip. He needed it to be finished, just in case.

\---

Of course the kid got into trouble.

Of _course_ he did.

What else did Tony expect? 2 months where apparently Happy only responded to him a few times, of course the kid would get tired of asking permission and run off on his own.

After shutting off the remote suit, Tony started to drive away from the city-wide party, escaping to somewhere quieter, with less people. Nobody would guess it, but being around so many people often stressed Tony out. Once he was in the relieving quiet of the wilderness, he stopped to let himself think.

The kid had been attacked by some idiot in a mechanical flying “vulture” suit. This... thing, whatever it was, had dropped Peter into the water from over 200 feet in the air. If Tony’s suit hadn’t worked, or the connection hadn’t held, Peter would be drowning at the bottom of a lake right then. The thoughts made Tony’s heart rate speed up. He should have known this was coming. This is what he gets for recruiting a child, he thought. Really, the only one to blame was himself. Now, though, the kid was in real danger, and he was going to need some help to make it through. Tony knew that.

He was supposed to be at the party for a few more days, but Tony couldn’t wait that long. Peter could be attacked again between now and then. After taking some time to breathe, calming down both his nerves and the feelings of frustrations he had felt towards the kid, he headed back to the party to inform everyone that his visit had been cut short. He left 30 minutes later.

All through the journey back, Tony was unable to stop thinking about the kid. His original plan of training the kid to make him better at using his skills had been tossed aside when Tony decided to not get involved with the kid. But after tonight, he’d had another conversation with him. The barrier had broken. Maybe now was the time for Tony to invite the kid to the Avengers base to train?

At the same time, the fears grew stronger. Tony didn’t know how kids worked. The last time he had tried to do something right involving a kid, she had broken out and attacked him, proving once and for all that he’d never know how to treat children. Even worse, Peter idolized Tony. That was a scary thought. Anyone who thought that Tony was a model of good behavior and who aspired to be like him had no idea what they were doing. Tony wished he could make the kid understand that, but how could he do that when he had so much trouble even just talking to him?

\---

Tony had finally worked up the courage to call the kid after the DC incident. He had an entire conversation planned out in his mind, one he had replayed countless times with hundreds of different possibilities. The one he failed to consider, though, was that Peter might be ditching school to do the very thing Tony had told him not to.

The kid had almost died. He had almost died because he was trying to be like Tony. So, Tony took away the suit.

Upon returning to the base, Tony realized just how much he had messed up.

Not having the suit wouldn’t stop the kid. He’d resort to using his homemade outfit, or worse, no costume at all. Tony let him keep the web blasters, but even if he hadn’t, Peter knew how to make more. No, if anything, this would increase the probability of Peter’s death.

“God, what am I doing, what am I doing,” Tony muttered as he descended down into his lab. He picked up where he’d left off on the new Spider-Man suit, working quickly. He turned off the alarms on FRIDAY, because he had to get this done fast. Things like eating would have to wait.

\---

He hadn’t finished the Iron Spider suit on time. Peter had fought the Vulture in his crappy costume, and he had won. Unfortunately, he had also been hurt, and it was more than just a scratch.

Tony felt conflicted. On one hand, the kid had proven that he could handle some stuff. But on the other hand, Tony felt responsible for Peter’s injuries. If he had trained Peter, if he hadn’t taken away the suit, if he had finished the other one on time, if he had done something differently, it would have been better. Tony was wholly convinced of it.

He couldn’t ignore the kid any longer. He needed to get Peter up to the base and train him. He felt ashamed of himself that it had taken him so long to accept and act on this. He would give him the new suit, show him his new room, and start teaching him how to be a hero. Even if he messed up, he would find a way to keep the damage minimized.

Well, turns out that Peter had other plans. Tony had Happy bring the kid up to the base, and had even assembled a group of reporters for the reveal of Spider-Man. But Peter had chosen to return to a normal life, doing hero stuff when it was needed but also being a normal kid.

Tony was impressed, but also worried. He couldn’t let Peter get hurt. He returned the old suit to Peter, keeping the new one ready at all times in case of an emergency. He tried to push the thoughts of Peter out of his mind, but they kept coming back. He could try as hard as he could, but he couldn’t deny the fact any longer: he was starting to care about the kid, and not just because he felt obligated to. But, if Peter wanted a normal life, Tony had no part in that.

Well, until he got a call from May Parker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the positive response to the first chapter! I'm really excited to keep writing this!


	3. Negotiations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May Parker is a worried mess, Tony is trying his best, and Peter is embarrassed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm actually really excited because now I'm through all of the "setting up" type stuff I had planned. The next few chapters are going to be really good, I hope! Also, opinions on light to moderate hurt/comfort? Let me know! I kinda want to explore what either of them would do with the other in a bad situation.

               “You did WHAT?”

Tony was standing in the apartment where he had met May and Peter Parker 2 months earlier. The smell of slightly-burnt food was still present, but so much had changed in the apartment that Tony wondered if May had a thing about redecorating. Standing directly in front of him was a furious May Parker, and at her side, Peter was looking at Tony. He looked like he had been found guilty of something horrendous. He was in his newly-returned suit, his mask in his hand.

“May, don’t get mad at-” Peter tried to say, but May turned around to face him and he shrunk back.

Tony knew it was time to take responsibility for something. This whole mess was his fault, and he couldn’t ignore it. “I made him the suit, yeah. That was me.”

May stared at him with an expression of pure disbelief. She looked like she was trying to find the right words for several moments, and ended up just shaking her head. “Please tell me you’re lying to me. Please tell me you didn’t give my nephew, _a fifteen year old kid_ , a superhero suit.”

“No, I did that.” There was no point in lying.

May had to sit down. Once she had calmed down slightly, she demanded, “Why would you pick a random kid from New York and turn him into an Avenger?!”

“Well, for one, he’s not an Avenger,” May had every right to be mad but she needed to get her facts straight, “He turned down that offer, he’s a lot more mature than you’d expect. And two, he’s not a ‘random kid’. He had his powers, whatever they’re even supposed to be, long before I met him.”

May’s expression shifted. She turned to look at Peter again. “Powers?” She asked him, her tone making her shock obvious.

“U-uh, yeah, I- I can... I can stick to walls... and ceilings and stuff, uh, I can show you, uh...” Peter awkwardly glanced around the room, eventually turning to face the wall behind him. Slowly, looking at May over his shoulder, he climbed up the wall. He reached the ceiling and lowered himself down, a single hand sticking to the ceiling impossibly. Tony made a mental note to test Peter’s abilities later, work out the physics behind them.

May had turned very pale. Tony had to resist the urge to tell FRIDAY to scan for vitals because from the looks of things, there was a very good possibility that May Parker had just made a trip to the underworld. She remained in the same position for several seconds, but finally turned to face Tony. The anger was still present in her eyes, but it was mostly masked by pure disbelief. “What. Did you do. To my nephew.” May’s voice was far too soft, almost inaudible.

“I didn’t do-” Tony began to say, but Peter cut him off.

“It wasn’t his fault, it’s mine! May, please, don’t blame him! I had these powers before he even met me, they aren’t his fault!”

May shook her head. “But he- he still made the suit, right? He gave you that?”

“Well... yeah, but-”

The fire returned to May’s eyes and she stared at Tony once more. “So it doesn’t matter if he had these powers or not. You still... encouraged him to run right into danger!”

There weren’t many humans that could scare Tony. On that list were Cap, Bucky, and Pepper. Now, Tony was tempted to add May Parker, a seemingly normal woman, to the list. There was no doubt in his mind that she would do anything for Peter, including beat up a millionaire superhero if she felt the need to. People do crazy things for the people they care about. Tony was perfectly justified being afraid of May, and besides, nobody else but Peter had seen the look she was giving Tony.

“Well, compared to most 15 year olds, I think he’s more than capable of taking on a few dangers. Besides, I gave him restrictions. It’s not my fault he ignored them.” Peter looked at Tony, guilt written all over his face as he heard the words that were clearly referring to all the times Peter had directly ignored Tony’s orders.

May laughed, almost hysterical. “That’s the whole thing, though! ‘Restrictions’ aren’t enough! He’s only fifteen!”

“So? I was helping my father build weapons that could level cities when I was twelve.”

“That doesn’t matter! You’re... you’re you! You’re a genius! Peter-”

“And Peter’s not?”

May had been stopped mid-sentence. She gaped at Tony, as if it was taking a moment for the words to process. And she wasn’t the only one, either. Peter was staring in amazement, as if he wasn’t sure if he’d imagined Tony’s words of praise or not.

“I mean,” Tony continued, “The mental math he has to do every time he swings between buildings to keep from colliding with a wall? Well, I didn’t teach him how to do that. Didn’t make him those webs, either. That was all him.”

May was silent for a very, very long time. Peter still looked like he was trying to not freak out over the praise Tony had given him. There was a moment where Tony wondered if he had broken the kid somehow.

“So... Peter was already a hero...” She started.

“Sure, he had this whole thing about responsibility, needing to help, whatever. I just, you know, gave him an upgrade. He couldn’t go around catching cars wearing nothing but a pair of pajamas,” Tony finished.

Peter looked down, his face flushing. “They weren’t pajamas,” he muttered.

May sighed. She stared up at the ceiling. “Oh, what am I supposed to do...?” She stood up and started pacing around the room. “Mr. Stark,” not Tony, okay, “you understand why I can’t just... let Peter go running off into dangerous situations, right? I understand that he has... powers... but he’s still just a kid! He’s a kid and I’m responsible for keeping him safe. And if I let him do this...”

“May, you gotta let me.” Peter spoke up for the first time in about five minutes. “If I don’t do this, I’m not saving people who might need to be saved. I... what if someone dies because I’m not there to help?”

“...But what if _you..._ ” She didn’t have to finish the question.

“May, _please!_ I’ll be okay, I promise!” Peter was basically begging at this point. “Please. Let me do this. I _have_ to.”

She sighed. There was another long pause as she was making up her mind. Finally, she said, “Okay. Okay, okay. But... if I let you do this, I need to make some rules. There has to be rules. For _both_ of you,” she looked at Tony. He nodded. It would probably be a good thing, having someone who actually knew things about dealing with children giving him rules to follow when it came to Peter.

“Alright. So, first of all...”

\---

               The rules list was simple enough.

1: Peter couldn’t sacrifice school work for hero work

2: Peter had to call Tony whenever he was in a situation more serious than a small-scale robbery

3: Tony had to show up to help in person, or Peter had to leave the situation

4: Tony had to train Peter at the Avengers base before Peter could take on anything bigger (this had already been Tony’s plan. Now he just had to actually do it, instead of procrastinate/ignore it)

5: Peter was not allowed out after 10 pm (it was originally 8:30 but they had convinced her to change it)

May told Peter that he had to go to bed after the rules were made. It was already 10:45 pm and the kid was worn out from all the excitement of the past few hours. Tony decided that he had invaded May’s apartment long enough and decided that it would probably be best if he left for the night. So he said goodbye to May, but not without apologizing briefly, and headed downstairs to head back.

Not a second after he’d stepped outside, a figure dressed in red, blue and black landed on the sidewalk in front of him.

“Mr. Stark, hang on a minute!”

Tony swore internally. “Kid, get back inside. You’re breaking the rules we _literally just made._ ”

“I know, I know! But I just needed to talk to you without May here!”

Why did Tony recruit a kid. Why did he think this was a good idea. Who let him do this. “What do you want?”

“I was just wondering... why did you actually come here? Like, you could have just called...”

Well, shit kid, go ahead and call him out on all his mistakes. “I don’t know, maybe because I felt bad about the time I _wasn’t_ there?” Shit. He just admitted it out loud, didn’t he? “Look, Peter. Just go to bed, okay? You’ve got school tomorrow.”

“And training, right?” Peter’s mask’s eyes were wide with excitement.

“...Yeah, I guess that’s what we’re doing.”

Peter bounced slightly on his toes, unable to contain his emotions any longer. “Wait, Mr. Stark? How am I supposed to get there? Is Happy picking me up?”

Tony stopped to think. He hadn’t thought about that. “Uh, sure. Something like that. Look, stop worrying about it and go to bed.”

Peter looked up towards his window. He hesitated for far too long.

“What’s the hold-up, kid?”

“Uh, Mr. Stark... I’m not sure I’m going to be able to calm down tonight.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Alright, I’ll help get you calmed down. Jesus, kid, how are you able to do anything without a babysitter?”

“Uh...” Tony knew that if he could see Peter’s face, it would most likely be bright red from embarrassment once again. “Well, ever since the thing happened, my brain has moved a lot faster and it’s hard to calm it down. I was basically fine before I got my powers, though!”

Well shit, that sounded like anxiety. Peter probably had anxiety. Heightened senses and all, it made sense. “Okay, well first, you’re still freaked out from the whole thing earlier, so you need to take some deep breaths and focus on not hyperventilating. I don’t want to have to deal with you fainting.”

“Right, okay. Breathing. On it.”

Once Tony could hear that his breath had slowed, he walked Peter through a grounding exercise. It seemed to be less effective on Peter than it normally was on Tony, but it worked well enough that Peter declared he had calmed down enough to try to sleep.

“Go on, now. May will kill both of us if she finds you down here,” Tony said.

Peter started climbing up the side of the building. When he reached his window, he looked down at Tony, who hadn’t taken his eyes off the kid.

“Goodnight, Mr. Stark!” Peter called before disappearing.

Tony was lucky Peter didn’t give him a chance to respond, because he had no idea what he would have said. It had been a long time since someone had told him goodnight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's read and left kudos! It really means a lot to me!  
> I have exams next week which means I'll either get like 2 chapters out because I start writing to relieve some stress, or I won't get another chapter out for a while. Bear with me!


	4. Distractions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony Stark is a Mess and needs to learn how to deal with teenagers, especially since he's spending so much time around one. Featuring May being the aunt we all wish we had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the wait! To make up for it this chapter is longer than the rest have been. I'll try to get the next one out soon, we'll see how that goes! I've got some ideas but they get pretty angsty so let me know how much angst you want.  
> Huge shoutout to my datemate for helping me out with this chapter! You can find them on tumblr at theartsyskeleton.tumblr.com.

“Come on, Pete. You can’t get distracted like that in the middle of a fight.”

The training room of the Avengers base was almost always empty after the Sokovia Accords incident, but since Tony promised to train Peter, the room had been of use again. Sometimes Rhodey would join, but it was usually just Peter and Tony. This upset neither of them.

Peter was rolling across the floor, after getting knocked over by Tony. He’d been distracted by an alarm that Tony had set to remind them to stay hydrated. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark! It’s just hard to focus sometimes!” He tumbled a little bit further and then found his way back onto his feet. He was crouched down in a “spider” pose, ready to continue training.

Tony checked the time, which was being displayed inside his mask. “Actually, I think we should take a break. We’ve been at it for a few hours and you keep getting distracted.”

“It’s not my fault my senses are really good! Come on, Mr. Stark, I can train some more! It’s only what, 5:30? I have plenty of time to do more training before I have to go home!” Peter begged.

“Not if I decide we’re done. Come on, you’re probably starving. I know how much you eat, and you’ve been going for three hours without even a snack.” Tony popped open the suit he’d been wearing and stepped out.

Peter groaned. “But I can’t come back until Tuesday! Please, Mr. Stark?” Training was only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. May’s idea.

“Nope, we’re taking a break. Maybe we’ll do more later, it depends on if you calm down or not.” Tony walked out of the room, heading for the kitchen. He heard Peter sigh and follow after him.

A pattern had been established in the few weeks that Peter had been coming to the base. Training would go on for 30-45 minutes, then Peter would need more food. This happened a few times until Tony got hungry, at which point they would stop training and get dinner, usually ordering something. Tonight, though, Tony decided to cook something himself.

Peter had taken out his homework and was sitting at the table while Tony cooked. His pencil wasn’t moving, however. Peter just sat there, the tip of the lead resting on the paper, while he stared just slightly above his textbook.

Tony set down the spoon he had been using to stir the noodles he was making and walked over to where Peter was sitting. Even though the textbook was open, it was on the very first page.

“What’s wrong?” Tony asked from behind him, and suddenly Peter was on the ceiling.

“MR. STARK DON’T SNEAK UP ON ME LIKE THAT!” Peter shouted as he slowly lowered himself back down. The minor shock had caused him to literally jump several feet in the air.

Tony laughed slightly. “Did I really scare you that much?”

“Maybe…” Peter muttered under his breath as his feet hit the floor.

“Alright, you’re spilling. What’s throwing you off, kid, what’s on your mind?” Tony didn’t talk to Peter about stuff like this often. Personal, life-related things were May’s territory. Not Tony’s. Too messy, too easy to mess up.

Peter looked uncomfortable, or embarrassed. Tony couldn’t tell. “Uh… well, I’m fine… I just, ugh, it’s nothing…”  
“What’s ‘nothing’?”

“It’s just… I don’t know, I guess I’m… having a hard time adjusting? Which is stupid because it’s been months and like it’s not even that big of a deal but I don’t know everything is just weird now and none of the like three people I can talk to about this seem to understand!” Peter had started talking very fast. That happened sometimes. He would hesitate to say something, but once he started, he had to finish what he was saying.

“This is about your abilities?” Peter nodded. “Well, you haven’t talked about them with me.” That was true. Tony hadn’t pressured Peter to talk about his powers, and honestly, talking was hard, so the less of it he had to do, the better.

Peter stared down at his web shooters. “They’re kinda hard to explain, Mr. Stark… I don’t even think I understand them all the way.”

“Well, we could always try to test them out, figure out your limitations and such,” Tony suggested.

Peter shrugged. The sound of water sizzling behind them caught their attention. “Shit, the food!” Tony sprinted over to clean up the mess.

The noodles had been salvaged, fortunately. Peter helped Tony dish out the food. “Why spaghetti, Mr. Stark? I mean, I, uh, no it’s fine! It’s fine! I was just…”

“Wondering why I’d make spaghetti?” Peter nodded. The answer was that spaghetti had always been a strange favorite of Tony’s, but he didn’t want to admit it. “What, isn’t this what kids like you normally eat? Do you have a problem with spaghetti?”

“No! It’s great, Mr. Stark, it smells wonderful!” Peter closed his textbook, giving up on homework.

They got some plates and sat down on opposite ends of one of the couches. Tony turned on the tv so that the two of them could review the footage of their training earlier. Peter hated reviewing his mistakes, and while Tony understood what it was like to want to ignore his failures, Peter needed to take every opportunity he had to learn if he ever wanted to take on bigger things.

The footage had been running for about 5 minutes before Peter had made a major mistake. There had been several that day, so Tony thought that it would be better to ignore the smaller things for now. He didn’t want to discourage Peter, and he knew that teenagers got frustrated easily.

Tony stood up and hit a button, which paused the footage right as Peter tried to web Tony’s arm. Tony had blasted the web before it had attached, and the web had instead shot off into the distance. Shocked and momentarily distracted, Peter tried to pull Tony’s arm back before his brain had time to register that he hadn’t made contact with his target. He stumbled backwards and ended up on the ground. But none of that had happened yet. The screen was frozen on Peter aiming for Tony’s arm.

“So, let’s look at this,” Tony said. He set down the pasta he had been eating and stood next to the screen. “You remember what happened, right?” He pointed at the web that was halfway to Tony’s arm.

Peter nodded and recounted the events that occurred as a result of his mistake. “It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t gotten distracted,” he concluded. His eyes were darting around the room, often landing on the bright screen but never on Tony. Which wasn’t unusual for Peter, but it was even more obvious today.

“Distracted?”

“Mhm. There was a noise. It was like… someone was walking around? It wasn’t you, I know what you sound like. It was loud,” Peter said.

The only other people in the compound had been Rhodey and Happy. They shouldn’t have been anywhere near the training rooms, though. “FRIDAY, where were Rhodey and Happy at this time?”

“Colonel Rhodes was in his room. Happy was not yet at the compound, boss.”

Tony looked at Peter. “So you heard a sound halfway across the compound, and it distracted you enough for a mistake like that?”

“Hey, I’m usually used to the city. There’s a bunch of sounds there all the time, so specific ones don’t stand out. Usually.” He paused as he put another mouthful of noodles in his mouth, his eyes flicking back to look at the screen. “Here, it’s almost completely silent. I can hear almost everything. It’s driving me crazy. And I don’t know why, but it’s really bad today. It’s like there’s nothing to hear.”

That was interesting. Peter’s senses had obviously changed the way he perceived the entire world. Tony would have thought that being somewhere quieter would have helped, but apparently not. Why it was bad today, though, was something he would have to figure out.

“Do you have any idea why today is worse?” Peter shook his head. “Alright, well it was completely throwing off your game. We need to figure out how to fix it.”

“M’sorry,” Peter said. He looked over at the screen again.

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t ask for your powers, did you. Did you?” It was a legitimate question. For whatever reason, the kid had stayed secretive about how his abilities had formed. All Tony knew was that it was somehow linked to being bit by a spider.

“No? No! Why would I want this?” Peter was almost shouting. Jesus, that kid had no volume control.

It was the first time he had expressed any negative opinions about his abilities. Tony knew that he loved doing the Spider-Man stuff, but Peter’s powers obviously came with more than he bargained for. Sure, his abilities were cool, and if Tony figured out to fix the issues caused by it, his enhanced hearing could probably help him tell if danger was coming from a literal mile away. But something told Tony that Peter went through some tough times trying to adjust to his newfound abilities.

Peter stared at the screen some more. Tony turned it off. It was obviously distracting Peter. “So, you don’t want the powers?”

“Yes? No? I don’t know! I mean, I want… I don’t… If I could just… Ugh. I. Why don’t I know what I want?” Peter was getting more and more antsy by the second. He seemed to be bordering on a panic attack.

“Breathe, Peter. You’re alright.” Tony was never the best at comforting people. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if it was comfort that Peter needed. “You want some of the abilities, but not all of them. Is that what you’re trying to say?”

Peter shrugged. “Kinda? Like, if I didn’t have all my powers then I couldn’t be Spider-Man, and a lot of people might be hurt right now because I wasn’t there. But if I didn’t have my powers, it would just be…”

“Normal?”

Peter nodded, looking at Tony. “Yeah. Normal.”

Tony thought. Should he tell Peter that he feels the same way about the whole thing with the arc reactor, so many years ago? That, while good had come from it, he sometimes wished he had never become a hero? No, now wasn’t the time. Besides, he didn’t really want to share that information.

There were ways he could fix Peter’s problem. His mind was already drawing figurative blueprints. If he found a way to limit Peter’s senses, make them closer to a normal human’s, then had FRIDAY help him out instead… or he could find a way to help Peter focus his senses… or he could create a program that only let him hear the most important sounds… there were enough possibilities that he would find some solution.

“Alright, we can work on that. But first,” Tony sat down next to Peter, “I want to know why you’re so anxious today.”

Peter flinched. “You noticed?”

“Of course I did. And I suspect that that’s the reason why you’ve been so jumpy and distracted today.” It hadn’t been that hard to figure out. Peter was almost always nervous, but today he had been even more than usual.

He sighed. “Alright… I was walking around in my suit with my friend, Ned-”

“Your ‘guy in the chair’?”

“Happy told you?” Peter asked.

“Of course he did. He was very annoyed about it all, I’ll have you know.”

Peter looked guilty. “Oops. Sorry.”

“Don’t be, he gets annoyed at everything. It’s kind of funny to watch. So, what happened with you and this Ned kid?”

“Oh, right. Well, I was on the phone with May, checking in,” May had insisted on reports every hour or two, “so I was distracted. And I turned around, and a guy, he had a gun, and Ned, and I hadn’t payed attention, and it was my fault, and he, I, it was… bad.”

“Breathe, kid. Come on.” He had left some gaps, but Tony was able to fill them in easily. His friend was attacked, and Peter blamed himself. “You gotta breathe, you’re having an anxiety attack.” What does he say? How does he calm someone else down from an anxiety attack when he can barely survive his own? “It wasn’t your fault, you know.”

Tony’s mind went to all the times that the people he cared about were put in trouble because of his recklessness. What had happened to Peter’s friend had been different. Peter wasn’t being reckless. In fact, he had tried to be responsible.

Peter had caught his breath. “Yes it was. I’m the hero, I should have saved him before the bad guys even got close!”

“You can’t stop everything from happening.”

“I can try, though,” Peter insisted.

Stubborn teenager. He was going to get himself killed.

Tony groaned internally. Talking was hard enough, but talking about emotions? And with a kid, no less. “You did try. He’s okay, right?”

Peter nodded.

“Then that’s the best you can do.” Tony took their plates to the sink. He made a mental note to build an automatic dish cleaning system at some point.

“But what if…” Peter started to say. “I… sorry. It’s nothing. Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

“What if what? Come on, kid. Finish your sentences.”

Peter sighed. He stood up and walked over to the kitchen area so they weren’t talking across an entire room. “What if… what if…”  
“Kid, you’re killing me. Skip the broken record stuff, what do you want?”

“What if one day, trying isn’t good enough? What if something happens, and I try, and it still goes bad? Like, ‘a lot of people get hurt’ bad?”

Tony knew that fear. It was a fear he lived with every day of his life. It was a fear he had lived  _ through _ . He could only imagine how hard it was on this kid, who didn’t even sign up to be a hero but felt like he had to. Because if he didn’t be a hero, then things would  _ always _ go bad. That’s what Peter told himself, anyways.

Tony didn’t have a response to the question. It was an answer he was still looking for himself. So, he did what he always did in situations like this.

He avoided it.

He placed his hand on Peter’s shoulder and started walking towards the elevator. “Come on, let’s go down to my lab. I’ll let you help me work on your suit, if you want. And we can work out what we are going to do with those superhuman senses of yours.”

Peter didn’t look happy, but he had calmed down. Tony supposed it was going to have to be good enough. “Yeah, I’d like that. Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

\---

They had worked far longer than they were supposed to. Peter quickly forgot the worries that had been plaguing him earlier and instead focused on working on the suit. Tony was almost amazed how quickly Peter changed just by being exposed to the science behind his suit. Tony wondered if he ever had that energy when he was Peter’s age. Probably not, he thought. For him, science wasn’t a choice. Engineering was his duty, as Howard Stark’s son.

Peter was hanging upside down on a web. He claimed that it gave him a better angle to see the suit from. Every once in a while, Tony would ask for him to grab a tool. He would shoot a web that landed with perfect accuracy, and grab the tool as it flew through the air. Tony needed to get him and Hawkeye together. Well, if he ever fixes the mess that had created a wall between him and Clint, as well as the rest of Cap’s team.

Peter gasped suddenly, startling Tony because they had both been silent for several minutes. His thoughts of the other Avengers faded.

“Is something wrong, kid?” Tony asked.

He hopped down, letting the web he had been clinging to hang from the ceiling. “It’s late! Like, 9:30 late!”

Well, shit. “Need me to take you home? Flying would be faster than driving.”

Peter shook his head so hard that it was a miracle it stayed attached to his neck. “I didn’t do any of my homework! If I go home now, May’s gonna kill me!”

Well, Tony couldn’t let that happen. “What are you waiting for? Get on it, I’ll finish the suit.”

Peter sprinted over to the elevator and disappeared. Tony kept working, wondering if he should have told the kid that he had to go home. He felt somewhat responsible for them losing track of time, and they would most likely be late anyways. Better for Peter to get in trouble for just one thing instead of two.

Tony once again found himself wondering what he was thinking getting involved with a teenager’s life. He didn’t know what he was doing. Every choice he made, like letting Peter stay instead of taking him home, seemed to lead to more and more problems.

Speaking of letting Peter stay, it was about midnight when Tony finished up the suit and went to check on Peter, only to find him sleeping on a couch with his textbooks and notes spread out around him. He had a pencil lying a few inches from his fingers, as if it had fallen out of his hand. He had earbuds in that were playing music just barely loud enough for Tony to hear.

He sighed. This kid was going to be the death of him. He left the room to grab a few blankets and gently placed some over Peter so he wouldn’t be cold. He whispered for FRIDAY to turn down the lights in the room and left Peter, but not before telling FRIDAY to alert him if Peter woke up. He then made a phone call to a very worried May Parker, working everything out with her after listening to her talk for what felt like a decade about how Tony couldn’t just do things like this.

When he finally went to get some sleep, he found that his mind was surprisingly calm. He didn’t have to worry about Peter when he was at the compound, where him getting the smallest paper cut would make FRIDAY alert Tony. So, his usual fears as of late were missing. It was strange, being able to relax easily. Strange, but nice.

\---

“Mr. Stark, I didn’t bring a change of clothes…”

Tony had woken Peter up two hours before he had to be at school. They were now faced with the task of figuring out how to get Peter there and ready on time. Fortunately, after Tony called, May demanded that Tony either bring Peter home or come by and pick up a bag she had packed for him. Tony wasn’t going to wake Peter up, so he had Happy pick up the bag.

“Got some right here, kid. You’re lucky your aunt was nice enough to pack it for you, I would have picked the ‘I survived my trip to New York shirt’.” He tossed Peter the bag.

He unzipped the bag and started pulling things out. “Hey, she put the textbook I left at home in here!”

The kid was lucky to have such a good aunt. He didn’t know how good he had it, having someone like her watching his back.

“Oh man, she’s going to kill me…” Peter grabbed his clothes and headed for one of the many bathrooms. “Oh, and Mr. Stark… uh, sorry for falling asleep. I didn’t mean to, I swear.”

“It’s alright. Just next time, maybe try to fall asleep in your room instead of on the couch.”

Peter stopped and turned around. “My room?”

“Yeah, your room. It’s underneath Rhodey’s, so make sure you’re as loud as possible.”

“I. Have a room here. Like a bedroom?”

“No, it’s a closet. What do you think?” Tony rolled his eyes a little.

Peter was visibly trying to contain his excitement. He was almost shaking. It was concerning. Do teenagers normally do that?

“Uh, are you okay, kid?” Tony asked.

“Yeah- yeah, I’m just gonna…” He pointed towards the bathroom, turned around, and basically skipped down the hall towards it.

God, this kid was going to be the death of him. The only time Tony had ever felt as excited as that kid got on a daily basis was the first time he flew in the mark 2 suit. The happy energy Peter almost always had was kind of contagious, though. Tony found himself getting happy about smaller things more and more since he had started hanging out with Peter.

It was nice. He wondered where this kid had been all his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nobody can tell me that Tony doesn't cook from time to time. He would definitely get sick of other people doing everything for him and be rebellious and learn to do things himself... kinda. Compared to May, he can cook, but let's just say that it's not a five star meal he's making.  
> Okay random headcanon over. Thanks for reading!


	5. Birthday Surprises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter's turning 16, Tony's trying his best, and a few things happen that neither of them were prepared for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter does have content that gets somewhat violent. There isn't anything too graphic at least in my opinion, but I would rather have someone be safe and not read if they know that things like this aren't good for them! Stay safe guys <3  
> Also, sorry about not updating this very quickly! Writer's block has been killing me so rip I guess. I'm trying my best, though, and I have the next chapter already halfway done so it should be up soon.  
> Again, huge thank you to my datemate who helped me out with this, you can find them on tumblr at theartsyskeleton.tumblr.com

“FRIDAY, access the security cameras around Eddie’s Sweet Shop in Queens, let me know if Peter’s there yet.”

It was Peter’s birthday. He had excitedly informed Tony that he would have to skip training because May was taking him out for ice cream, something he almost never got to do. Hearing that was the first time that Tony truly realized how different life was for Peter. He only had the money to get ice cream twice a year if he was lucky.

So of course, Tony had to go crash his party and let Peter know that he could ask him for ice cream any time he wanted. In fact, Tony was considering buying an entire ice cream parlor for Peter just to prove that he was allowed to ask Tony for things.

“Him and his aunt should be arriving within fifteen minutes,” FRIDAY informed him.

Going at top speeds, he could get there in ten. He stepped against the panel on the roof of the Avengers compound, and the Iron Man suit concealed beneath it began attaching to him. “Great, let’s get there first.” Sprinting for a second before jumping straight off the side of the building, Tony headed for New York City.

\---

Landing several yards away from the ice cream parlor and leaving the suit in a somewhat hidden location, Tony pulled on a hat and some shades to be less noticeable. Once he reached the ice cream parlor, he sat down, and a few people gave him some looks. Nobody seemed to recognize him though, good. He did not want the media finding out about his little trip, because Peter shouldn’t have to be exposed to that.

“...then Ned tripped, which would have been bad, but he knocked right into Flash and made him spill his lunch all over the girl he was trying to impress!” Yeah, that was Peter’s voice. He could see the kid walking through the shop next to his aunt, who was smiling at his story.

“Well, I’m glad your day went so well! I’ll be honest, I was a little nervous, but-” he cut his aunt off.

“May, you don’t have to worry about me!”

She nodded, obviously not convinced. “Yeah, and who completely forgot about his test until his aunt, who ‘doesn’t need to worry’, reminded him?”

Tony stepped into line behind them as he saw Peter roll his eyes. Fortunately, the kid didn’t notice him because he was so invested in his conversation with his aunt. “Come on, May, it’s my birthday. You can’t tease me on my birthday!”

“I can and I will.”

“No fair!”

They started laughing and Tony couldn’t conceal his smile any longer. This was a side of Peter he didn’t get to see often, but it was one he liked.

They had reached the front of the line. May and Peter ordered their ice creams, and as May was about to pay for them, Tony stepped up to the cashier and said “It’s on me, actually.”

He couldn’t see Peter’s face, but he heard the gasp from behind him. “Mr… uh, Mr. Stark?”

Tony turned around to face him and Peter gasped again. “Hey kid. How’s the birthday going?”

“I- Mr. Stark- I, what are you doing here? What…” He was bouncing a little, and grinning like a small child who had just been given the world’s cutest puppy.

“Well, I couldn’t just miss out on your birthday.” He pulled out some cash (that he kept on him just in case of an emergency, like a spider kid’s birthday. This totally counted as an emergency) and paid for the ice cream.

May tried to stop him. “Mr. Stark, I can’t let you do that…”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Parker, but you do know that I could buy this entire ice cream store if I felt like it, right?” She gave a slight nod that probably meant something along the lines of  _ well, you’re not wrong _ , and let him continue. “I was actually considering that earlier. What do you think, kid? Would that be a good birthday present?”

His eyes went wide. “Mr. Stark, you don’t- there’s- i- you don’t have to get me a birthday present!

People were beginning to notice who Tony was, he realized. It was something he usually failed to even perceive, but May and Peter definitely never got this. Besides, people were going to start wondering what Tony had to do with this kid soon if he didn’t do something. “You’re the best intern we have at Stark Industries, so I need to treat you to something. Now, are you going to eat that, or let it melt all over and make a mess?”

“Oh, sorry!”

May was glaring at Tony, a drop of ice cream falling onto the ground in front of her.

“Mrs. Parker, you’re killing me. I know that you hate me, and reasonably so, but I bought you ice cream.That at least half makes up for one thing right? So I only owe you for like 99 million and a half things now?”

She rolled her eyes.

Peter looked up. “Come on, May. It’s my birthday, can we do this another time?”

She sighed. “Alright. But…” her glare shifted into something kinder. She seemed less likely to murder Tony and more confused. “You didn’t have to do that. Buy the ice cream.”

What was it that she didn’t understand about the fact that Tony was literally rich? “I have plenty of money that I don’t need, May. The least I can do is use it for something good like buying the two of you ice cream. Besides, I would want to either way. Peter deserves it.”

“...You really care about him, huh?” May asked.

Tony shrugged. “You tell me.”

“Told you so,” Peter whispered in May’s direction, probably thinking Tony wouldn’t hear.

He smiled as they finished their ice cream.

\---

“Now, I wasn’t entirely sure of what to get you, but I-”

“Wait, you got me something else?!” Peter interrupted, then immediately looked guilty. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to interrupt!”

“You’re fine. What I was saying was, if you don’t like it, let me know and I’ll get you something else.”

“Okay, but you don’t have to, Mr. Stark.”

They were walking back towards where Tony had left the suit. He opened up a compartment on the interior of the suit, a place that he usually kept spare shades or small items he didn’t want to have to carry. He pulled out a slip of paper and handed it to Peter. His eyes widened the more he read.

“Mr.- Mr. Stark… Is this- is this real?” He was barely containing his excitement.

Tony nodded. “Yeah, it’s real. Unless you don’t want it to be, then it’s not.”

“But I- you- you’re taking me…”

“To Disneyland, yeah.” He leaned against the building next to where his suit was. “I had a meeting at the Stark Industries Headquarters, thought that I could take you for the experience, show you around, let you mess in the lab and shiii… uh, stuff. But then I thought, you’re the biggest nerd I know, so you’d probably love going to Disneyland.”

He laughed, probably out of disbelief. “I’m the biggest nerd? Have you, uh, have you looked in a mirror?”

Okay, that got a chuckle out of Tony. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Is the present good?” It was an actual concern Tony had, despite Peter’s overly positive reaction.

“Of course it is! May is never going to let me go, though.”

Well shit. The kid did have a point. “I could just tell her about the meeting. You know, we do have to keep this whole intern thing up, and you could actually use the experience. We could just do a few extra things while we’re there.”

Peter was about to burst from excitement. “So when is it?”

“Just after school ends for you. The weekend before my birthday is when we head down, actually.” He hadn’t planned it like that, but that’s how it’d happened. “Now, go on. I know your aunt had other stuff planned for you today, so go do that.”

“Okay, Mr. Stark!” He started to run off, but he turned around and called back, “Thank you so much for everything!”

“See you Tuesday, kid!”

\---

“Sir, Peter Parker was not at school today.” FRIDAY’s voice had woken Tony up. He had once again fallen asleep while working too late.

“Is he at home?”

“May Parker has called several police departments within the past 24 hours. She also attempted to contact you multiple times,” The robotic voice responded.

Tony struggled to his feet. “Oh, SHIT!” He frantically slipped into an Iron Man suit, running out of the lower area of the base. He didn’t bother with the elevator, and instead flew up a flight of stairs and burst through the first window he passed. “FRIDAY, give me cameras. You know what to do. Where was he last seen?”

“Nine hours ago. He was on his way to school. He didn’t make it.”

Well, shit. “Was his suit on him?”

“He usually leaves his suit in his backpack and doesn’t take it out unless he is in a hidden area. He doesn’t want to risk being caught.”

FRIDAY set up a flight plan for him, so Tony tried to calm himself down. He had to figure out where Peter went. “Why didn’t he make it to school?”

“He disappeared during a blind spot on the cameras that I have access to. Peter Parker or Spider-Man haven’t been spotted since.”

Tony wanted to curse himself. How could he have let this happen? Why didn’t he put a new tracker in Peter’s suit? Why didn’t he have access to better cameras? “Limit my options, where could he have gone? If he wasn’t seen by and cameras… target the blind spots, make me a map. Rule out every location you can.” His anxiety was rising.

FRIDAY pulled up what he requested on the screen. Fortunately, the area had been limited by an extreme amount, so he wouldn’t have to look that hard for Peter. He would have to get to the city first before he could do anything else.

As he neared the city, targeting the area FRIDAY had indicated, he could feel his heart rate skyrocketing. He could barely breathe, barely think, barely see…

No. He had to push through this. Breathe in, breathe out. The only thing that mattered was finding Peter. He had to calm himself down.

“FRIDAY, can you track his phone?” Tony asked, his voice shaking.

“I tried. His phone is in his bedroom.”

Damnit. “Okay, you gotta help me more than that, I can’t search all of these buildings.”

“I was able to create a list of individuals that potentially caused the disappearance of Peter Parker, boss.”

Tony lost balance in the air because he was caught so off guard. “And you didn’t tell me this WHY?”

“You didn’t ask.”

He cursed himself for making an AI that would act like this at any time ever.

“Boss, I should also inform you that his friend, Ned Leeds, was with him at the time of his disappearance,” FRIDAY told him.

Tony wanted to groan. Or blast something. Or destroy the idiotic piece of software that was FRIDAY. Anything to let some emotions out. “Is his friend still with him?”

“That would be the logical conclusion.”

“Can you get the location of his friend’s phone?”

There were a few moments of silence. It was long enough that Tony was able to reach the area where Peter and his friend disappeared.

A light appeared on the map on his display. “His phone is there.”

Tony sped towards the location as fast as he could. He wasn’t going to be responsible for the deaths of any kids today.

\---

He blasted a hole in the side of the building. He would cover it later if he had to, but all he was focused on then was finding Peter. And his friend.

The inside was dark and dusty. He would have struggled to be able to see if it wasn’t for FRIDAY helping outline things on his display. He heard coughing and saw a figure bent over several feet away, propping himself up against a table of some sort.

“...Kid?” Tony asked, knowing even before the response came that the person in the room wasn’t Peter.

“Hello?!” The figure called out. “Are you coming to kill me?”

It definitely was a kid. Tony wondered if this was Peter’s friend. He took a few steps towards the figure, trying to get a closer look. “Hey, uh, I’m not going to kill you. I want to talk, is that okay?”

The figure shrunk back, but only slightly. “Boss, I’m detecting signs of injury,” FRIDAY informed him.

“Wait, are you Iron Man?” The figure asked.

“Uh, yeah. Look, kid, I’m here to get you to safety, but I need to know something first,” Tony said, hoping he didn’t say anything wrong. Christ, dealing with kids was hard.

The figure coughed several times before answering. “Of course, Mr. Iron Man, sir. What do you need to know?”

“Do you know where…” Peter, or Spider-Man? Which did he ask? “Uh, Spider-Man is?”

The figure was silent for a second before exploding into a longer answer than Tony had ever been expecting. “Oh my god, that’s right! You know Peter! Oh my god, this is the coolest day of my life. I mean, kinda. I did get hurt and I think Peter did too but I’m pretty much okay. I don’t know where Peter went but there was this guy, and I couldn’t really see what he looked like, or I don’t remember, but he had a gun, and Peter couldn’t stop him because we had to go with him or he would shoot me he said,” Jesus, this kid was talking quickly. “And so I told Peter that we should go with him because if he did the Spider-Man stuff his identity would be revealed, so we went with him, but once we were inside Peter tried attacking him, without webs though. He shot the gun a few times but he didn’t hit me, I did get knocked over pretty bad though and hit my head and it hurt but then I looked up and he was gone and so was Peter.”

All Tony could do for several seconds was stare at the kid in shock. “So you have no idea where they went?”

“Uh… nope!” Was all the kid had to say.

Couldn’t one thing go right? “Okay, come over here. I need to do a medical scan because you’re obviously hurt.”

The kid walked towards him, but he was limping slightly. “FRIDAY-”

“Already done, boss. He seems to have sprained his right ankle. He is showing only mild signs of a concussion but his mental state may also be compromised from emotional trauma.”

Okay, that wasn’t so bad. He had to get this kid out of here first, because Peter would probably never forgive him if he didn’t help his friend. Then he could find Peter.

“Alright kid, come here, I need you to hold on to me and not let go while I fly you out of here.” Tony assumed that straightforward directions were probably the way to go, and he was right. The kid did exactly what he had been told, and Tony breathed a sigh of relief.

“Shouldn’t you be looking for Peter though?” He asked.

“I will as soon as you’re out of here.”

“Oh, okay.”

Tony took off, and the kid started screaming. He was afraid that the kid was going to pass out, or let go and fall, but once he landed, he saw that the kid was smiling.

“Uh…” Tony asked, “are you alright?”

“That was...” he gasped for breath, “the coolest thing… that has ever happened in my life!”

Okay, the kid was fine, even if his definition of “cool” wasn’t what Tony would define it as. He could see the better in the light and while he was shaking slightly, he appeared to be doing well overall. He had to get back to find Peter, though. “Kid, are you good if I leave?”

“Yeah, my house isn’t that far away. I’ll call my mom and she can come get me,” he replied.

“Are you sure you can handle explaining where you were for nine hours?” Tony asked.

The kid looked confused. “Wait, nine hours?”

“Yeah, did you not realize how long you were in there?”

He shrugged. “Huh, I guess not. I thought I had just shut my eyes for a minute after hitting my head and then Peter was gone, but I guess it must have been longer than a minute. I was just getting ready to leave when I opened my eyes but then I got worried because my mom always says that when you don’t know where you are to stay put and someone will find you. Which I never understood but you found me so I guess she was right.”

Wow, Tony did not think it was a good idea to leave this kid alone. “Are you sure you’ll be alright?”

He nodded. “Yeah, weird things have happened to me before. Like one time, when Peter-”

“Okay, I’m going to cut you off because I don’t have time for stories.” Before leaving he paused, looking at the poor confused kid. “FRIDAY, put my number in his phone. Hey, uh, kid?”

“Yes, Mr. Iron Tony Stark Man?”

“Text me when you get home, okay? Or if you get in more trouble let me know.”

The kid nodded, so Tony left. He still had another kid to find.

\---

“FRIDAY, did you search the cameras again?”

“No change, boss. However, I have been able to limit the direction he was taken in to two possibilities.” It was shown on his display.

“Which one is less public, which one would he have been less likely to be spotted?” Tony asked.

One of the paths was highlighted. “Here, boss.”

He started heading down it, keeping his eyes open for anything that seemed off.

Why Peter? Capturing Spider-Man, that made sense. But to the rest of the world, Peter was just a normal kid, a teenager from Queens. Who would specifically target him? And who would care enough about taking Peter that he wouldn’t give up after the kid had started attacking? Of course Peter wouldn’t betray himself by using his full strength without his suit, but he was more than capable of stopping someone, especially if they were on their own.

He was coming up to a building. It looked mostly abandoned. “FRIDAY, give me any heat signatures in the building.”

“There are two in the basement.”

He broke into the building, which looked like the remains of an apartment complex, and headed down the stairs. He made sure that his targeting system was online and active before breaking into the downstairs room. He didn’t want to accidentally hit Peter.

When he blasted into the room, the first thing he heard, before he was fully able to register what he saw, was the sound of a gun being drawn. As he looked around, he saw a man, who had hair that was just starting to turn grey and a beard, holding a gun to the head of none other than Peter Parker. When he saw who was there, he shouted, “Come out of your suit, or I’ll shoot him!”

Oh, boy. Another person trying to steal his suits, right? This would go well.

“Mr. Stark, don’t!” Peter’s voice sounded strained, as if he could barely breathe. Tony couldn’t leave Peter like this. The kid was being hurt, and it was directly his fault this time. He had to make sure that Peter wasn’t shot, first and foremost. That was the only important thing at that moment.

He sighed as he opened the suit and stepped out, complying with the orders of a complete stranger.

“No… don’t…” Peter said, before letting his head rest to one side. He looked exhausted, out of breath.

If Tony had been looking harder, he would have realized just how bad Peter was doing.

The man laughed. “So it’s true. Tony Stark, the man who couldn’t care about anyone, has somehow found the ability to care about his intern, of all people.”

Tony glared at him. “Sorry, who are you?”

The corner of the man’s mouth twitched as if he had been about to smile, but he didn’t. “I am someone who has been wronged by you and your Avengers too many times. So, give me control of your suits or I take something of yours in return.” He looked down at Peter. Tony wanted to roll his eyes. He had heard this tale one too many times for it to be interesting anymore. He also wanted to punch the guy, break his arm, shoot him in the head, anything to get Peter away and safe.

“Mr. Stark! I’m fine, don’t let him have it!” Peter shouted.

Tony locked eyes with Peter. He hoped that the kid could pick up on what he was trying to convey. He saw Peter nod slightly.

“Alright, fine,” Tony said. “You’ll have to come over here, though. I need to add your eye scan to the suit’s database so it gives you access.”

He laughed. “Try anything, and I’ll shoot.” He walked over to the suit, but kept his hold on Peter. Peter looked at Tony, as if he was asking if it was time. Tony shook his head in a way that he hoped wasn’t suspicious to the man.

Tony had no choice. He had to add the eye scan. He hoped, though, that he had trained FRIDAY well enough that she would run facial recognition scans and figure out who this guy was.

Once he had entered the new user into the system, he turned around and locked eyes with Peter again, hoping their silent communications game was strong enough. The man took a step towards the suit, thinking that he’d won, but Tony nodded his head as a signal to Peter to break free.

That’s when things went wrong.

The man’s grip had been loosening, but it wasn’t enough. Peter was strong, but he had to hold back, and the man was strong too. Peter was able to twist out of the man’s arm and knock it back, but as Peter was trying to get away, the man tossed the gun into his other hand and caught a hold of Peter’s clothing, causing him to stumble back with a gasp. Tony punched the man in the side, but the impact wasn’t enough for him to lose his hold on Peter. The kid ducked down and tried to knock the man’s legs out, a move he had picked up from Black Widow while watching old training tapes. It didn’t work as well as it should have, though, because the man stayed upright.

Of course, things decided to get even worse. The man aimed his gun and tried to shoot at Tony, since he was the one still on his feet and had been in a position where he could get to his suit. Eliminating Tony made sense. He just hoped that the kid had enough common sense to escape and wouldn’t hesitate because of Tony. He heard the gunshot and closed his eyes. He braced himself for the pain, something that he was both used to and would never, ever get used to.

But it didn’t come.

Instead, he felt hands grab his shoulders and push him towards the ground. As he hit the floor, time slowed down, he could hear the anguished cry of Peter Parker, a kid who had just turned 16 the day before, as he was hit by a bullet not meant for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha, oops?  
> I'm kinda sorry  
> Don't worry, pretty much all the questions will be answered in the next chapter.  
> Thanks for reading!!


	6. A Long Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony has some shit to deal with. Peter deserves better. Ned is once again the best part of this story even though he's not physically in this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, huge huge thank you to my datemate for helping me out. You can find them at theartsyskeleton.tumblr.com

The first thing he saw was the kid landing on the floor. The next thing he saw was bright red spreading across the kid’s shirt.

Tony bent down to help Peter. He had to get this kid out of here, get him to a hospital or something, make sure that he was okay. He could not let this kid die. Unfortunately, this gave the man enough time to steal the suit.

Well, shit.

Tony didn’t know where to look, down at Peter who thankfully was still moving, or at the suit which now contained the man who had shot him. He knew logically that it would take the other man a while to figure out how the suit worked, but Tony needed to be prepared for when that happened.

“FRIDAY, get me a suit, call Dr. Cho, send her Peter’s files,” he ordered, and looked at Peter’s shoulder. He tore off some cloth from his shirt and used it to stop the bleeding. Peter let out a cry of pain. “Pete, I’m going to get you out of here, okay?” He didn’t know what he was doing but he had to keep talking to the kid. “I can’t take you to a normal hospital but I have someone back at the base who’s going to help fix this, okay?”

Peter nodded slightly. Tony wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard the kid say “it hurts”. He could hear the man moving around in the suit, trying to figure out how to use it.

Fortunately, at that moment, FRIDAY let him know that the suit he had ordered was almost there. He just had to stall for a minute.

“Peter, stay down, okay?” he told the kid, and after getting a half-response from Peter, he stood up and looked at the suit containing the other man. “Alright, now you have to at least tell me your master plan, right? You won, you got the suit, so come on. What’s your motivation, your tragic backstory, your evil plans for taking over the world to make the Avengers pay, come on.”

“You really believe I would tell you my plans? You watch too much TV.”

Tony shrugged. “I guess I’ve just been in this situation enough times before, so,”

“Nice try, but as soon as I figure out how to use these blasters, I’ll kill you, and then you won’t be able to stop me.”

“Oh, that sounds fun. I guess I’ll just have to call in some backup, then.”

FRIDAY alerted him, “Boss, the suit will arrive in 30 seconds.”

“What backup? Where are the Avengers, Tony Stark? It seems to me that your team has disappeared.”

That one hurt. “I gave them some time off. Figured they deserved a vacation.” Or maybe they were in hiding because Tony had messed up. But he couldn’t let himself focus on that at that moment, because he heard the sound of his suit crashing into the building. As soon as he saw it, he ran towards it, practically leaping into it. He instantly felt better, more secure, wearing the suit. He positioned himself between Peter and the other man. “Besides, I didn’t say backup meant other Avengers. Did I say that, FRIDAY?”

“No, boss.”

He looked at the other suit. The one he was wearing was an older model than the one in front of him, but he knew how the suits worked. Unfortunately, this was the moment that the other man decided to figure out how the suits worked, too. A blast was aimed at Tony, and while he could easily dodge it, he knew that Peter wouldn’t be able to if he became a target. Tony put his hands up, ready to fire.

“Do me a favor and get out of the suit,” he said. “FRIDAY, do you have a name for this guy yet?”

“Jonathan Hall. He worked for a small, family-owned business in New York City that was destroyed during the Battle of New York. His daughter went missing during the attack and has not been seen since. His criminal record includes homicide.”

Great.

The man laughed. “Why would I get out? I’m just getting the hang of this.”

So of course, he figured out how to fly and flew out of the room. Absolutely amazing. Tony was having the best day.

Tony took a second to check on Peter. The kid hadn’t listened to Tony, and instead of staying down, he had propped himself up into a sitting position.

“Kid, lie back down. Someone will be here soon to get you to Dr. Cho, they have the location.” Tony’s anxiety levels were rising.

“Mr. Stark, I’m fine. I- I’m okay.” Peter was shaking. He definitely was not fine.

Tony popped open his face mask so that he could see better. “Kid, I don’t want you getting hurt any more. I’m going to go stop this guy, but you better still be here, lying down, when I get back, if I’m back before someone else comes to take care of you.”

Peter nodded, but Tony wasn’t convinced that he was going to stay. He had to go, though. He couldn’t let the guy get away. He had FRIDAY track the location of his other suit and he sped after it.

\---

He had managed to catch up with the other man, but unfortunately, the place he had been lead to was the center of New York City.

The other man laughed. Tony wanted to blast him into oblivion, but that wasn’t safe with all the civilians around.

“So wait, what exactly is your plan? Steal an Iron Man suit, and then what, exactly? Pretend to be me? Murder random people because you can?” Tony wasn’t worried about the second one because he had protocols that would hopefully prevent that.

“Boss,” FRIDAY said, “I should inform you that Peter Parker has put on his suit.”

Tony almost stopped in midair. “He did WHAT?! FRIDAY, get him in a call with me right now!”

“On it.”

Tony was convinced that Peter would ignore the call, but much to his surprise, he answered. “Mr. Stark, please don’t be mad at me!”

“Kid, there is literally a bullet in your shoulder, what are you thinking?!”

“I had to get your attention! Mr. Stark, I know what his plan is!” Peter shouted.

The man tried to blast Tony, and he just barely dodged on time. “What?”

“He wants to kill you because he’s mad. He wants to kill all of the Avengers, and Spider-Man too probably, and he thinks that if he takes your suit and kills you first it will be easier! He’s insane, I’ve been talking to him for hours trying to figure it all out. He’s not thinking clearly.”

Could today just be over? Tony really didn’t feel like doing this today. “Okay, but how did he know to kidnap you? He should have no idea who you are. How was he able to know I’d come save you?”

“He thinks I’m your intern, remember?”

Tony thought. “So either he knows someone who goes to your school that could tell him, or...”

FRIDAY spoke up. “Boss, he was at the ice cream parlor yesterday.”

Well, shit. Tony knew that he’d been risking a lot of things by going there, but he hadn’t expected something like this to happen.

“Uh, Mr. Stark, I think I’m going to go, I’m dizzy...” Peter said. Shit, that kid was going to kill himself.

“Peter, take off the suit and lie down. You’ve lost a lot of blood. Someone is coming to get you but you need to stay there and not die before they can find you.” Before he could hear Peter’s answer, he was knocked backwards by a large blast.

The man laughed again. “I thought you were supposed to be stronger than this!” He blasted Tony again, this time hitting his left arm in just the right way. Tony knew instantly that it was broken. The feeling of burning spread all the way to his fingertips, and moving his arm made him feel nauseous. He felt like passing out for a moment but pushed it away.

Okay, Tony was officially done with all of this. He shot forward as fast as he could, ignoring the pain to the best of his abilities, and grabbed on to the other suit, flying as high as he could. “FRIDAY, prepare to blow the suit.”

“Won’t you be caught in the explosion if you do that? Not a good move, in my opinion.” The other man sounded overjoyed. He was right, but Tony was prepared. This wasn’t his first time doing something that could definitely get him killed but was probably fine. Probably.

Tony looked down. They were far enough from the city now that the chances of serious injuries were slim. Well, aside from the two people in the air. He let go of the other suit and flew backwards as quickly as he could. “Light em up, FRI.”

The explosion was big enough that Tony was blasted backwards and struggled for a moment in the air to regain control. Pausing where he ended up, he looked at the remains of the suit just to be certain that the other man hadn’t survived. After making sure, he let out a tired sigh and headed towards the ground. He wished he didn’t have to blow up the suit, but he could easily replicate it.

“Boss, I should inform you that Peter Parker is now being transported to the Avengers Training Facility hospital,” FRIDAY said, and Tony allowed himself to relax slightly. “I should also warn you that there is a large crowd gathering below, and the media will most likely be looking for information.”

All Tony wanted was to at that moment was to make sure that the kid was okay, but he also knew that Dr. Cho was more than capable of taking care of him. He had been lucky that she was in New York when this happened. Right now, Tony had to go speak to at least one reporter so that the official story was out there, and then he could go check up on Peter.

He landed right in the middle of a group of people, and as soon as he flipped opened his face mask, he was flooded with a chorus of “Mr. Stark! Mr. Stark!”

“I’m sure many of you are wondering about the events that just occurred. A man named Jonathan Hall, who had a history of homicide, kidnapped...” my intern? My kid and his friend? No, definitely not that one. Perhaps it was best if he pretended that he didn’t know the people who had been involved. “...two teenagers. I saved the kids, but while I was doing so, he was able to gain control of my suit. I used another suit to attack him, and as you just saw, he has been taken care of.”

“Mr. Stark, how could he have taken over an Iron Man suit? How do we know that just anyone can’t do that?” a reporter asked.

“Because his ability to gain control was a technical error that was not directly linked to me.” Telling the truth wasn’t good in this situation. “Now that I have knowledge of it, I will fix the error. I am certain that an incident like this will not be happening in the future. Now, if you don’t mind me, I have business to attend to.” He closed his face mask and took off, heading towards the Avengers base.

\---

The first thing Tony wanted to do was see Peter, but Dr. Cho ordered that his arm was to be treated first.

“Given your history of injuring that arm, it is important that we make sure that it’s healing,” she said.

So Tony had to suffer through x-rays and receiving a cast, something he had insisted that he didn’t need. Dr. Cho said that she would rather not take any risks, though, and also told him he was to keep away from doing any hero work for two months. Great.

After what felt like an eternity, he was finally allowed to see Peter. He entered the room to find that the kid was sleeping, and while Tony knew that he should feel relieved, he almost wished that the kid was awake so that he could be completely sure he was okay. Having nothing else to do, he sat down in the chair in the room and waited.

That, of course, was when he remembered May Parker.

“Oh, SHIT!” he exclaimed as he quickly grabbed his phone to call Peter’s aunt, who was probably terrified currently.

She answered on the first ring. “Where is he?! Is he with you!?”

“Yes, he’s with me.”

He could hear May sigh with relief. There were a few moments of silence, and then she shouted, “What did you do with him!? Why weren’t you answering my calls!? Mr. Stark, you can’t just do things like this!”

“Mrs. Parker, please try to take some deep breaths.” Tony couldn’t explain if she didn’t calm down at least slightly. “I’m sorry for not answering your calls. I’ll have to change my protocols so your calls always go through, that was a mistake on my part. And as for what I did with Peter, I rescued him and his friend. There was a man who attacked them on their way to school. He tried using Peter to get me to come to him, he wanted to force me into giving up my suit.”

“But did Peter not have his own suit on him? How did he get caught? Shouldn’t he have been able to escape?” May sounded a little bit calmer but still pretty anxious.

“He didn’t want to reveal his identity.”

May exhaled slowly. “So why didn’t you find him sooner? He’s been gone for like, ten hours!”

“I know. I didn’t even know he was gone until my assistant told me. Again, I have some protocols to change.”

“You better change them, Mr. Stark, or my nephew won’t be allowed to even leave the house anymore. Do you have any idea how I’ve felt all day today?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Parker. This won’t happen again.”

There was a pause, and then May said, “So... where is he now?”

“In the most advanced hospital on the planet, excluding Wakanda, I’m assuming. He’s being taken care of by doctors that I’ve known for years and that I trust, the best of the best.”

“Why is he in the hospital? Is he hurt?”

God, Tony was bad at talking to people. Is this where he told the truth? “Yes, but he should be fine soon. It’s mostly a precaution to make sure he doesn’t get hurt more. You’re welcome to visit, if you want,” he added. “I can have someone come pick you up.”

“Truthfully, I don’t think I can stay awake much longer, I’m exhausted. I might want to come by tomorrow though,” was her response.

“I’ll have all calls from your number go directly through.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stark.” Huh. Tony was certain that was the first time she’d thanked him. Maybe he’d done something right?

Tony was about to hang up the phone, but just before he did, he added, “You know, I was worried about him, too.”

“I know.”

\---

Tony wasn’t sure if he had just closed his eyes or if he’d fallen asleep, but the next time he opened them, Peter Parker was screaming.

Tony got up from the chair and walked over to where Peter was lying. The kid was thrashing around and messing up the medical equipment, so Tony had to grab his hands to stop him. “Hey, kid, calm down! Calm down, it’s just me!”

Peter stopped moving so much and looked up. Once he seemed to realize who it was he relaxed slightly. “Oh, sorry, Mr. Stark!” he said, sounding apologetic.

“It’s okay.”

Tony knew the kid had just woken up from a nightmare. He’d had enough of his own to know what they look like. He considered asking about it but decided against it. Now wasn’t the time, and he wasn’t the right person to be talking to him about it.

Peter tried to sit up but winced with pain and gave up. “What happened? Where am I?”

“You’re in the hosp-”

“Wait what about the guy?! Mr. Stark, did he get away? Where is he? Where’s Ned?!”

“Okay, kid! Calm down, it’s alright. You’re okay. Ned’s okay.” If Peter kept freaking out like this, he would launch himself head first into an anxiety attack. Tony wanted to prevent that, if he could.

“What about the bad guy?”

“Don’t worry, I took care of him.”

“You did?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Okay. That’s... okay.” Peter finally seemed to be calming down, which was a good sign. “Sorry, Mr. Stark. I didn’t mean to freak out.”

“It’s okay, kid. We’ve all been there.” Tony had lost count of the number of times he’d woken up like Peter had. “Hey, how’s that shoulder feeling?”

“Uh, I think it’s okay. It hurts a lot though.”

Tony felt bad for the kid. He might have enhanced cellular regeneration that made him heal quickly, but bullets hurt. A lot. And super hero or not, he was still just a kid. Peter Parker was probably the one person on the planet who deserved to go through this the least. He was a hero because he felt like he owed it to the world when he didn’t even ask for powers in the first place. He took time to help with even the smallest problems that people had, because he genuinely just wanted to help people. He even tried to keep everyone, including his enemies, from getting killed. Why was he caught up in all of this? What had he done to deserve this?

“It’ll probably hurt for a while. You took a bullet for me, kid.” Well, looks like Tony was bringing this up now. “...Why would you do that?”

Peter had been picking at the edges of the blankets, but those words made him look up. “Uh, because... you’re you, and if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have even been there, and I can heal fast but you can’t, so I thought it would be better...”

“Kid, you’re barely 16. I’m an adult. You don’t have to protect me.”

“But I wanted to!”

Tony sighed. He didn’t get the chance to respond, though.

“What’s wrong with your arm?” Peter asked.

Tony looked down at his cast. “Eh, it’s nothing. Broken bone, nothing I haven’t dealt with before. But I’m apparently off of hero duty for two months so guess what, kid? You’re off of it too.”

“What?! But Mr. Stark, I heal a lot faster than you do!”

"Yes, but if I’m not there to help you if you need, then you aren’t allowed.” This was a rule that Tony had been trying to get Peter to obey.

Peter sighed. “What about... the suits you don’t have to be inside physically to use?”

“We’ll see. Don’t worry about it right now.”

“Alright... So what happened with Ned?” Peter asked.

Right, Peter’s friend. “He’s fine. Uh,” Tony checked his phone, and sure enough, there was a text from Ned that read: “thank u so much for saving me sir it was super cool” and a second one that read: “o yeah i made it home too” with a thumbs up emoji. “He made it home. I had him text me.”

Peter seemed relieved. “You gave him your phone number? He’s going to go crazy with that, you know.”

“Yeah, let him know that I can block him if I have to.”

The atmosphere was starting to become less tense, and Tony would have almost liked to stay to talk more, but Dr. Cho chose that moment to walk in the room.

“Mr. Stark, I’ll need to look over the patient again now,” she informed him.

Tony stood up. “Cool. You alright, kid?” he asked as he was leaving.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Tony wasn’t entirely convinced by his answer, but at least the kid seemed better than he had been.

\---

“Good news,” Dr. Cho said to Tony as she met with him outside of Peter’s hospital room. “He’ll live.”

“Oh, that's inconvenient, now I have to keep feeding him.” Tony replied, unable to contain his sarcasm. It had been a long day, and he didn't want to reveal how relieved he actually was.

She smiled. “His injuries are almost entirely healed. I’ve never seen anything like it before. He was shot in the shoulder and yet he’s almost completely back to normal within a day.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty interesting, isn’t he?”

“So, he’s really Spider-Man?” she asked.

Tony rolled his eyes. “No, he’s just a random kid I found on the streets that just so happens to have powers that perfectly match the ones that Spider-Man is confirmed to have.”

“He’s very strong, though. I never would have guessed that it was a child.”

“Yeah, speaking of which, I should probably test how much weight he can lift at some point. Do you want to help?”

She laughed a little. “I wasn’t just talking about physical strength, although he’s certainly strong that way as well.” Tony was confused. What was she talking about, then? “I can tell he got it from you.” Well, that clarified nothing.

Not knowing what to do, Tony shrugged. “So, he’ll be out of the hospital soon?”

“By the end of today.”

Hearing those words were the only thing that had allowed Tony to fully relax all day. “Thank you, Dr. Cho.”

“You’re welcome.” She started to leave, but before she did, she added, “I’m glad your son’s okay.”

“Yeah...” Tony replied, not really registering what she had said until after she’d left the room. By the time he’d realized that she’d called Peter his son, he wasn’t even sure if she’d said it at all. After all, that wouldn’t be something he’d miss, right? Peter wasn’t his son, after all. He was obviously hearing things.

Tony needed a nap. He was too tired for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really have a lot to add today because I'm tired and my mind isn't working anymore but thanks for reading, I'm hoping I'll get another chapter done soon but I guess we'll see.


	7. Conversations are Hard but Tony's Trying His Best

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a few things that Tony needs to talk about. Also, someone makes an appearance who hadn't shown up yet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please please PLEASE I'm begging you do not interpret my writing as st*rker in any way. Peter is a CHILD in the MCU and this fic is SPECIFICALLY focusing on their relationship developing in a father-son way. Please, if you ship them, just leave. I don't want you here.  
> On a lighter note, I have to once again thank my datemate for helping me on this chapter. You can find them at theartsyskeleton.tumblr.com. Go give them followers and love because they're amazing.  
> Finally, I think I might change things up next chapter and make it from Peter's point of view. I haven't decided yet, but keep an eye out for it if that's the direction I decide to go in!

After attempting to get some rest and failing, Tony found himself wandering around the compound. He considered heading down to his lab to find something to do, but he knew that if he did that he wouldn’t leave for hours. He would probably want to try sleeping again at some point, even if it only resulted in nightmares and feeling more tired than he had when he went to bed. Tony was no stranger to nightmares by any means, but they had only gotten worse after the whole, uh, incident with Steve. Adding worrying about the kid on top of it, and it’s no surprise that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a full night’s sleep.

After wandering for a while, he eventually found himself sitting in front of one of the several TVs in the compound. He turned it on, not really looking for anything specific, and left it on a local news channel. He couldn’t focus on it, though, and zoned out instead.

What if the kid had died? What if more people discovered Peter’s link to Tony and tried to use that like what had happened the day before? Peter might be a superhero, and might be able to handle himself, but Tony was still worried about him. Maybe it would be best if Tony didn’t let the kid be seen with him, at least not when Peter doesn’t have the suit on. That way, only Spider-Man would be associated with Tony, and Peter Parker would be fine. Or maybe he should leave the kid alone all together. He couldn’t let him get hurt. But that would just make Peter more likely to do risky things, and nobody would be there to help him...

His daydream session was interrupted when FRIDAY alerted him that there was a call from Pepper Potts.

“Hi, honey,” he said as he answered the call.

“Tony! Thank goodness!” She sounded relieved.

Tony yawned. It wasn’t too late in California, where Pepper was currently, but the sun had definitely set several hours ago in New York. “What’s up? You usually don’t call this late.”

“Well, I’ve been in meetings all day today and yesterday, so now was the first chance I had to relax and check up on the rest of the world. So, I finally heard about the thing that happened yesterday. Are you okay?”

Of course Pepper would be worried. “I’m fine. Pep, this wasn’t even anything big. You don’t have to worry about me this much, I could have handled it in my sleep.”

She sighed. “I know, but this has been the first thing that you’ve really been involved in aside from that thing with Spider-Man a while back and with that you weren’t on your own…”

“I promise I’m okay, Pepper. And, uh, this thing kinda involved Spider-Man as well.”

“It did?”

“Yeah.” Tony wondered if he should tell Pepper what happened. He really needed someone to talk to about it, so… “He wasn’t in his suit, though. He’d been caught off guard. You know that he’s trying to keep his identity hidden. He was in a situation where he didn’t have many options that wouldn’t give himself away.”

“What even happened?”

“Well, it was his birthday two days ago. I bought him some ice cream because why not but while we were there some people noticed me. They picked up on the fact that there was a link between me and the kid, I think.”

Pepper sighed. “Why would you go somewhere to buy ice cream for this kid?”

“I don’t know, because he deserves it? And if I hadn’t, his aunt would have paid for it and I know that they need the money.”

“So is he your newest charity case? A chance for you to get good press? Or make up for something else you feel guilty for?” Pepper’s tone was cold.

“What?! Pep, why would you think that?!”

“What am I supposed to think, Tony?! You go out of your way to do things for this kid in person that you easily could have done without leaving the compound, and I love you, Tony, but I know that you don’t just…  _ do _ things like this! And if that wasn’t the reason, why would you let him be seen around you?!”

“You haven’t met this kid, Pepper! Is it so hard to believe that I would care about him?!”

Pepper sighed. “I don’t know, Tony! You ignore him, have him talk to Happy instead of you, only show up to help him when other lives are in danger, and I haven’t heard you talk about him once since the day you brought him to the compound only to let him leave. Again, what am I supposed to think?”

God, Tony had really messed this up, hadn’t he? “I’m sorry, Pepper. I didn’t give you anything else to think, and honestly, I don’t know what I’m doing myself.” He paused for a moment, trying to think of what to say. “I can’t do this by myself. I need help.”

“Well, that’s a first.” Pepper’s tone was lighter, more calm. Tony relaxed slightly.

“I don’t know what to do around kids, especially not one who looks at me like I put the stars in the sky. I’ve messed up too many times, and I’ve hurt him too many times, and I’ve gotten him hurt way too many times. He doesn’t deserve it. I thought I was doing better, the past couple months, by training him, paying attention to him, you know… but then yesterday happened, and I realized that I can’t do this. I let him be seen with me in public, it caught the attention of the wrong guy, and he’s had to pay for it. I haven’t done any of this right. I need help.”

There was silence. Tony wondered if he’d said the wrong thing. But Pepper’s voice returned. “Well, I don’t know much about kids, either. I do know that you did the right thing by paying more attention to him. And while I’m not entirely sure what you were doing if you don’t want him to be seen with you, I don’t think you can be blamed for what happened.”

“It’s not that I don’t want him to be seen with me. I just didn’t realize what would happen as a result of it.”

“Well, do you want my opinion on it?”

“Yeah.” It was less about wanting it and more about needing it at this point, though.

“I think you should talk to the kid about it. Tell him that you don’t want to put him in danger, and see what he thinks. He’s a superhero, and while he might be young, different rules apply to him than most kids. Didn’t you say that he could stop cars with barely any effort?” Pepper asked.

“Yeah, but I don’t want him to end up in the hospital again-”

“Part of even being slightly involved with the Avengers is trips to the hospital. It would have happened sooner or later, you know. And besides, now’s your chance to talk to him about being careful.”

Tony hadn’t thought about that. The kid probably did need some sort of reminder that he wasn’t invincible. While Tony hated that Peter had been shot, maybe Pepper was right. This meant that he had to talk to the kid now.

“Alright,” he said, “I’m going to talk to him.”

“That’s a good idea. If you need me to, I can head back to New York,” Pepper offered.

“I think we’re good here, but I’ll let you know.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. The kid is, too. The only reason why he’s still in the hospital at this point is to make sure that he’s completely okay, but he has enhanced cellular regeneration so injuries heal quickly for him.”

“And what about you?”

Tony sighed. “Broken arm, nothing I haven’t dealt with before. It’s in a cast because Dr. Cho insisted. I’m fine.”

“Alright. Please, please tell me if you need me, okay?”

God, Tony didn’t deserve Pepper. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry about getting mad at you. It’s just been a long day.”

Tony laughed a little, but it was hollow. “Join the club.”

The call ended, and Tony went back to staring at the screen. He managed to focus on what the screen was showing for about 5 minutes before he went back to his thoughts.

\---

Tony had no idea what time it was, or how long he had been staring at the corner of the screen, but he heard the sound of someone entering the room and was brought back to reality. He looked over his shoulder to see Peter Parker standing in the doorway.

“Oh, sorry, Mr. Stark… I was just, uh, going to bed. Goodnight,” he said, and he turned around to leave.

Tony had to talk to the kid. He knew that if he didn’t now, he would keep putting it off until he forgot about it. “Actually, kid, do you have a minute? I need to talk to you.”

Peter turned around slowly. He looked nervous. “Uh, yeah, what about?”

Tony patted the couch next to him. “Here, come sit down so I don’t have to look over my shoulder, my neck hurts.”

Peter silently walked over to the couch and sat down. He looked tired, anxious, and overall not okay.

“How’s that shoulder doing?” Tony asked.

“Oh, it’s, it’s okay. Yeah. I’m okay. It feels a lot better. How’s, uh, how’s your arm?”

“I’m fine, this isn’t the first time I’ve been hurt,” Tony said. Seriously, broken arms were pretty routine for him.

Peter frowned. “But aren’t you… like, mad or something?”

“Why would I be mad?” Tony was genuinely confused.

“Because, if… if it wasn’t for me… Mr. Stark, I’m sorry about what happened, and if I’d been more careful, but you had to come, and then you were almost hurt, and then you actually were hurt, and it was my fault because if I’d just had my suit on, and-”

Peter was having a panic attack. “Hey, kid, calm down.” Shit, that wasn’t the right thing to say. “Here, breathe, okay? Deep breaths. It’s going to be okay. I’m not mad at you.”

He took deep breaths, trying to get Peter to do it with him. The kid was going to pass out if he didn’t. Tony really needed to figure out how to get him help with his anxiety.

It took a few minutes of the two of them doing deep breathing exercises, ones that Tony had learned to use when he needed them himself, but Peter eventually calmed down slightly. At least his breathing was slowed enough that he wasn’t about to hyperventilate. “M’sorry,” he said.

“Peter, you don’t have to be sorry.”

Peter didn’t say anything, but he shook his head insistently. Tony could see tears streaming down his cheeks and wondered when the kid had started crying.

Tony didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to say. “Kid, none of this is your fault. And my arm being broken isn’t the end of the world.”

“But… if I hadn’t been there…”

“That guy was going to find a way to get to me eventually. It was just bad luck that he was there on your birthday.”

“But-”

“Peter, if you keep insisting that it was your fault, then you’re grounded.” Where did that come from? Tony shrugged internally and rolled with it.

Peter sat up a little when Tony said that. “I… can you even ground me?”

“I can and I will. Don’t test me, Parker.”

Peter and Tony were both silent for several moments after that. Peter was the first one to speak up again. “I’m still sorry, though.”

“I know you are, kid.” Then Tony added, “I am, too.”

“For what?”

Everything? “If I hadn’t been there on your birthday, none of this would have happened.”

“What?!”

“Kid, if the guy hadn’t seen me with you, he wouldn’t have come after you.”

Peter shook his head again. “You want to apologize for giving me the best birthday present ever?!”

Tony was confused. “The Disneyland ticket?”

“No! You came to see me, like, outside of hero stuff!” Tony was still confused. Peter sighed and continued, “Look, Mr. Stark, you’ve done so much for me. You made me the suit, you’re training me… but the fact that you actually took time to come see me, like outside of training… I mean, it’s dumb. Nevermind.”

“No, tell me. What were you going to say?” Tony really wanted to know.

“I, uh, I know that you only gave me the suit because you needed help… and I know you were only training me because May told you to… but you didn’t need to actually come see me in person and buy me ice cream. That’s not related to Spider-Man stuff. So…”

It finally clicked. “You didn’t think I cared before then.”

Peter looked down. He seemed like he was almost ashamed. “I guess not,” he replied.

Tony wanted to be mad at himself for ever letting the kid think that he only did things for him because Peter was Spider-Man. He couldn’t let himself focus on being mad, though. There would be time for self hate later. “I don’t know how to convince you of this, but I’ve cared about you since the day I met you, Peter. I guess I’ve done a pretty terrible job of showing it before now, though.”

“You…”

“Peter, I’m bad with kids. I’m bad with everyone, but kids especially. I don’t know what I’m doing half of the time. Hell, I don’t know what I’m doing ninety-nine percent of the time. That doesn’t mean that I don’t care about you.”

“Are you sure?” Peter asked.

Tony nodded.

Peter seemed to be far more relaxed now. He’d stopped crying and seemed almost like he wanted to smile after Tony had said that he cared.

“So, uh… what did you want to talk about?” Right, Tony had called him over for a reason.

He sighed. There were so many things he wanted to say, wanted to talk about, needed to talk about, even. But the words weren’t forming. Why couldn’t he be good at this? Talking to people was a basic human skill, and yet Tony couldn’t do it. “Uh, I think we need to talk about the issue of you leaving your phone at home so I couldn’t track it and find you faster.”

“You were going to track my phone?” Peter asked, sounding more annoyed than anything.

Tony rolled his eyes. “In this situation, wouldn’t you have  _ wanted _ me to track your phone?”

“I… yeah, I guess so…”

“Look, I’m not going to invade your privacy, Pete. I’d only track your phone if you were in danger and it was the best option I had. But aside from that, if you’d had your phone, you could have called the police, or me, or someone, and I wouldn’t have even had to consider tracking you. But since it was at your house, that wasn’t an option.”

Peter looked guilty. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark! I was running late for school, and I forgot to grab it.”

“Sure. My point is, you want me to do something like the ice cream again, right?”

“Oh, what?” Peter said. “You don’t have to! It was nice and I really enjoyed it and if you did it again that would be amazing but I totally understand if you’re too busy or don’t want to or something because I don’t want to bother you and I know you’re probably really busy all the time.”

Tony only caught about half of what Peter had said, since the kid talked at a thousand miles per hour. He really needed to work with him on that. “Well, people are going to notice that you have a link to me sooner or later, and that means more than just that one guy. Things like what happened yesterday might happen again.”

“You think they would?” Peter asked.

Tony nodded. “Mhm. So, because of that, I want you to make sure to have your phone on you at all times. No ‘I forgot it at home’, no ‘it ran out of batteries’, none of it. Speaking of which, I’m getting you a new phone.”

“What?! Mr. Stark, you don’t have to do that!” Peter insisted.

“Your phone is falling apart. I noticed. What are you going to do when the one you have now breaks, huh?” Tony asked.

“It’s fine. I was going to get the screen fixed-”

“Besides, it’s ancient. I’m getting you a new one.”

Peter acted like he was insulted, and Tony couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. “Hey! It’s not that old! It works, doesn’t it?” Peter laughed, showing that he didn’t really care that much.

“Not for much longer, at the rate you’re going.”

Peter rolled his eyes.

With the mood substantially lighter, Tony felt more comfortable. Things hadn’t gone as bad as he’d thought.

“Mr. Stark… are you still going to take me to Disneyland?” Peter asked.

Tony wondered why Peter brought that up. “If you still want me to. Why?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “I kinda thought that maybe you wouldn’t want me to be seen with you in a place as crowded as that. I didn’t think you would like going to a place like that anyways…”

Tony hadn’t even thought of that. He was fine with the amount of people that would be around, and besides, he’d never been to Disney before, either. He honestly didn’t know what to expect. But Peter was right, a ton of people would be seeing Peter with him. The press would probably catch wind of it as well, and that would put an end to a lot of privacy that Peter had. “It’s up to you, kid. If we go, the media will probably find out that you exist, and I doubt you’ll be able to keep your privacy after that.”

Peter shrugged. “That’s okay. I know what the media is like, they say enough about Spider-Man.”

“But that’s different from what they’ll say about Peter Parker. Everyone will know who you are, and you might not like it when people start recognizing you.” It was something that Tony had never known, never had. He had envied other kids when he was younger for being able to go outside without being followed by stares, reporters, and questions. He also knew that once people learned that he was friends with Rhodey that he too had been caught up in all of it, and that people used him to get to Tony. He knew how hard it had been on his only friend, at least at the time. “I want you to think about this. Strangers might come up to you and ask you questions about me. You could be picked on at school-”

“I already get picked on.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that because I guarantee that the government wouldn’t approve of me threatening a minor,” Tony said, and Peter smiled.

“Mr. Stark, I promise I’ll think about it. But honestly, spending time with you is so great that I really don’t think I’d care.”

Tony really didn’t deserve this kid.

He looked at the time, and saw that it was almost 3:30 in the morning. “Hey, you better go to bed, kid. Your aunt is coming to see you tomorrow, and she’ll murder me more than she’s already going to if you get no sleep.”

“Uh… I’m not tired. Can I stay here a little longer?”

“Weren’t you heading to bed before I stopped you?”

Tony knew that he had caught Peter in a lie when the kid didn’t respond.

“Okay,” Tony said, “what’s wrong. You need sleep but you obviously aren’t getting it. Is it the nightmares?”

Peter seemed shocked. “You know about those?!”

“Of course I do. You’re not the only one who gets them.”

“I… huh?”

Tony sighed. “Why do you think I’m up still?”

“You, uh, invented a type of coffee that makes you never need sleep?” the kid asked.

“Guess again. Also, I don’t drink coffee.”

Peter yawned. “I guess I just didn’t realize… I didn’t think you would get nightmares, too.”

“Almost every single night since The Battle of New York.”

There was silence as Peter took a moment to register that fact. “Wow,” was all he said.

“Look, I’m not going to pretend that I’m an expert on helping people, but if you want to talk about your nightmares, then I could at least listen,” Tony offered.

Peter shook his head. “I don’t think I want to talk…”

“Well, what do you want to do? You can’t stay up all night.”

“Uh… normally when I have nightmares, I do something to distract myself until I sleep, which is why I came out here, I was going to watch a movie but I didn’t realize you would be here and then I realized that I would probably be in trouble for being awake or not in my room and I tried to leave, uh, sorry.”

“You really have to stop doing that,” Tony said.

“Doing what?”

“Panicking and then talking so fast that nobody can hear what you’re saying.”

“Sorry.” Tony decided to let it go. It wasn’t a top priority at the moment, although he did want to help Peter calm down a little.

“You’re allowed to go wherever you want, kid, as long as you don’t leave the compound while without telling me. It would probably be best if you were asleep right now, but I’m not going to get mad at you for trying to find a way to sleep,” Tony told him.

“Wherever I want?”

Tony nodded. “Yeah, it’s not like this place is super crowded or anything.”

“Even… your room?” Peter teased.

“Take one step into my room and I’m burning the suit while you watch.”

Peter jumped to his feet. “No! Mr. Stark, I was kidding! Don’t burn my suit!”

“Then stop being a smartass.”

“I thought you didn’t swear in front of me.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “I’m sure you’ve probably said worse, and I’m tired, so I don’t really care that much right now.”

“I, uh, if I’m allowed to watch a movie, do you want to watch with me? It might help you sleep, too…”

That wasn’t a bad idea, actually. “Sure, why not. What are we watching?”

They debated for a while, but finally settled on Back to the Future. Tony had never seen it before, but Peter had apparently seen it several times, so it didn’t take long for Peter to fall asleep. Tony managed to focus on the movie for at least a little while, but eventually lost track of the plot and stopped trying. Before he let sleep take him, he felt Peter shift next to him until Peter was resting his head against Tony’s shoulder.

Tony didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to wake the kid up because he was relieved that he was actually sleeping, but the position he was in was uncomfortable, so Tony carefully wrapped an arm around him, being sure to avoid his injury. The movie was still playing in the background, but Tony closed his eyes. All he could think before falling asleep was that maybe he wasn’t doing as bad of a job as he’d thought.

That night he slept better than he had in a very long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ONCE AGAIN please do not interpret my writing as st*rker. If you do, I would kindly appreciate it if you left. Thank you :)  
> Thank you so much to everyone who's read and commented! I appreciate all of you


	8. It's All Fluff This Chapter Guys You're Welcome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony Stark makes pancakes and things are actually good and happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is from Peter's point of view because I'm CHANGING IT UP. I have no reason for why I did that aside from I felt like it.  
> ALSO I realized that I messed up because I had it in my mind that Peter was 17 in Infinity War but apparently he's still only 16 and his birthday is in like the summer or something. In this his birthday is in the late winter/early spring because I really wanted his birthday to come before Tony's in the timeline so just ignore canon because that's what we're good at right? Right. Sorry for messing it up.
> 
> Once again thank you to my datemate for helping me. You can find them at theartsyskeleton.tumblr.com.

Peter woke up first. He didn’t know where he was for a moment, and almost panicked, but his eyes adjusted to the dark room and recognized his surroundings. He was still on the couch from the night before, and he was leaning against Mr. Stark, who had wrapped an arm around him.

That realization almost startled him enough to make him sit up, but he didn’t want to wake Mr. Stark, or bother him somehow. Peter had noticed during the few visits he’d made to the tower that Mr. Stark didn’t seem to sleep. So he forced himself to relax again and let his mind wander.

The last time he’d been this close to Mr. Stark was when they had “hugged” when Mr. Stark had grabbed the door for him. Since then, they’d spent more time together, but not enough for Peter to think that Mr. Stark would really be okay with Peter falling asleep like this. He knew that Mr. Stark wasn’t the type of person to get close to anyone, let alone a random kid from Queens. He had probably just accidentally fallen asleep there. This was definitely a mistake. They “weren’t there yet”, right?

They had gotten much closer recently, Peter realized. Hell, Mr. Stark had even visited on his birthday and was planning on taking him to Disneyland. But did that mean that they were “there yet”? When would they be “there”? What even was “there”?

He knew that he was probably just bothering Mr. Stark. The fact that he fell asleep like this was an accident. But if it had been an accident…

Peter’s stomach made a loud noise of complaint. He realized how hungry he was, but he didn’t want to get up. It was… strangely comforting, the way Mr. Stark had his arm wrapped around Peter. He felt safe here.

Also it was warm on the couch but cold in the rest of the room and Peter didn’t really feel like moving.

So he leaned his head back, returning to the position he’d fallen asleep in before, and closed his eyes.

\---

When Peter woke up again, he thought his stomach was going to devour itself.

That was the first thing he’d noticed.

The next thing was the fact that he was now lying flat against what he assumed was the couch, although his head was propped up by a pillow and he was covered by a blanket. After that, he noticed that there was a familiar aroma filling the room, but it took him a few seconds to figure out what it was.

_ Is that… pancakes? _

Peter opened his eyes and discovered that he was right, both about being on the couch and that there were definitely pancakes. He felt a stab of disappointment when he realized that Mr. Stark wasn’t there anymore, for some reason, but when he turned around to face the kitchen area that linked to the room Peter was in, he saw that his mentor was the one making the delicious smelling breakfast.

He yawned and stood up. “Morning, Mr. Stark…” he said sleepily as he walked into the kitchen area.

“Oh, hey kid. Hope you like pancakes. I was just about to wake you up, your aunt is going to be here in an hour or so.” Mr. Stark set down a plate in front of Peter and proceeded to go through the fridge and pantry and place every single topping anyone could ever want in front of him. Syrup, butter, whipped cream, chocolate chips, a dozen different fruits, and he was still taking out more things.

“Wh- Mr. Stark, I don’t need all of this!” Peter exclaimed.

Mr. Stark shrugged. “I didn’t know what you liked. How’s that shoulder doing?”

Peter looked over at his shoulders. The bandages were still wrapped around it, but he couldn’t feel a thing anymore. “Much better now. I actually think it might be all healed.”

“That’s good.” Mr. Stark grabbed a plate of his own and had started to pile approximately seventeen different toppings onto it. “So, do you have school tomorrow?”

“I, uh,” Peter looked down at his plate. “I’m supposed to be there now, actually. May probably called me in sick, though.”

“Well, if there’s any issues about it, let me know and I’ll get it sorted out. You shouldn’t have to get in trouble for this. You had a bullet in your shoulder for god’s sake, you deserve a break,” he insisted.

“No, no! You don’t have to do that!” Peter didn’t want Mr. Stark to be inconvenienced. “You have more important things to worry about. I won’t get in trouble, probably.”

Mr. Stark frowned. “More important things? Like what?”

“I don’t know…” What exactly did Mr. Stark do, aside from build new suits and occasionally do some light hero work? Peter didn’t know the answer to that and he’d never asked.

“Your life is important, Peter. I’m trying to not mess it up, and we both know I’ve done a pretty bad job at it so far.” Those words shocked Peter. Did Mr. Stark really think that? “Speaking of your life being important, why don’t you tell me a little about it? I’ve known you for quite a few months now and I just learned about your friend the other day.”

Was Mr. Stark really asking Peter questions about his life? He didn’t know what to think. He could have sworn that the billionaire wouldn’t care about the boring details of an average teenager’s life. Of course, Peter wasn’t an average teenager, but he at least pretended that he was when he wasn’t at the training facility or in his suit. “Oh, Ned? Yeah, he’s super cool and I’ve known him since forever. We basically do everything together because neither of us really have other friends, although I guess MJ is our friend now. She’s the captain of the Academic Decathlon team. Oh, and I guess the rest of those guys on the team are kinda my friends too, except for Flash.”

Mr. Stark had stopped eating and was looking at Peter, and Peter realized that he had probably been sharing too much. But then Mr. Stark said, “Keep going, kid. Why’d you stop? I was listening.”

“Oh, uh…” What was he supposed to talk about? What was interesting about Peter’s life? “I guess things have kinda changed a lot recently for me at school, I mean, Liz moved away, she was the girl I went to Homecoming with… but I’ve started to hang out with more people, but nobody’s a replacement for Ned. We even have a secret handshake, uh…” Shit, why did he say that? That was such a dumb thing that he didn’t want Mr. Stark to know about! Too late now... “So a lot of people think we’re weird, but I guess they’re not wrong! Haha…”

Mr. Stark smirked. “While having a secret handshake is pretty much the lamest thing I think you could have, you kinda remind me of me and Rhodey. You, uh, probably know him as War Machine.”

“Oh, yeah! I always forget that you’re like, super close to a lot of the other Avengers.”

Mr. Stark’s face fell a little at that and Peter realized he was probably thinking about the rouge Avengers, but he said, “Yeah, I guess I got to know them pretty well. But Rhodey’s been my friend since I was in college.”

“Wow, you must be really close, then,” Peter said. He hoped that him and Ned could stay friends for that long.

Mr. Stark smiled. It was a true, genuine smile, the type of smile Peter rarely saw from Mr. Stark. “Did I ever tell you about the time that I caught Rhodey kissing a girl I’d had a crush on and so I stole his phone and texted her dumb things from it pretending I was Rhodey?”

Peter giggled. “Like what?”

“Like things that a 16 year old should not be hearing.”

He could feel himself blushing, and he giggled some more. Mr. Stark’s smile stayed, and Peter decided that he liked it when Mr. Stark was happy. “Any more stories?” he asked, excited that he finally got to learn about Mr. Stark some more.

“I can’t think of any off the top of- actually wait, there was one time when we’d been up late partying, now don’t go telling this story because I was drinking and I was like seventeen, so don’t you dare do what I did, either, but I’ll tell you anyways. We had been partying, and we both got super drunk, and there was a little karaoke station with microphones and stuff. So Rhodey signed me up without my permission and when I went up there I was annoyed because I can’t sing, and so I told everyone about how Rhodey called his mom every day to tell her good morning. It wasn’t even that big of a deal, I’ve come up with things way more clever than that before, but people wouldn’t leave him alone for a month. So he eventually got me back by telling a ton of people about the time I wet my pants going on a rollercoaster when I was fourteen and they all acted like it was the greatest story they’d ever heard. Like, ‘oh, Tony Stark wet his pants when he was a teenager, that’s the funniest story ever!’ and things like that because people used every excuse they got to mock me. Oh, and if I find out that you told anyone about this, I’m never talking to you again.” He said the last part as if he was threatening Peter, but he knew better. Mr. Stark was too close to smiling again for him to be truly serious.

Peter laughed. “Oh, but now I can use that against you! If you try to take my suit away, I can expose you on the internet or something!”

“You little… I made you pancakes! I’m supposed to be on your good side now!” Mr. Stark exclaimed, and lunged forwards to “attack” Peter, which he easily avoided by leaping out of his chair. Mr. Stark got up and chased after him, and it evolved into a game of tag. It was the most amount of laughter Peter had ever heard from Mr. Stark, and it was a lot of fun. When Peter ended up on the ceiling, Mr. Stark gave up. “That’s not fair! I don’t have my suits and you’re the only one that can stick to things like that!”

Peter stuck a web to the ceiling and lowered himself upside-down. “So you’re done trying to attack me?”

“I wasn’t attacking you. I was just testing out your shoulder to see how it was doing.”

Peter smiled. “Of course that’s what you were doing, Mr. Stark.”

He rolled his eyes. “Okay, come down here, facing the right way and all of that, and finish your food. I know that you need to eat a ton and you definitely didn’t have enough to eat yesterday so you have to be starving.”

Disappointed that it was over, but also knowing that he definitely needed to eat more, Peter let go of the web he’d been holding, flipped in midair, and landed in his seat. He cheered internally, proud of himself for not messing up.

“...I don’t think what you just did was physically possible,” Mr. Stark said, and Peter grinned. He liked it when he did things that Mr. Stark thought were impossible.

They finished eating in near silence. Every so often one of them would make a comment, but they were mostly focused on eating the heavenly pancakes. And they were heavenly. Peter had been so used to May’s failed attempts at making something edible that when he had something like this he made sure to enjoy every bite. Nothing against May, but she should really find a better hobby than cooking.

“Mmm, those were really good pancakes, Mr. Stark,” Peter said as he wiped his mouth. He brought his plate to the sink and started cleaning it.

Mr. Stark followed him and took the plate out of his hands. “Thanks, kid. Also, we have a dishwasher here. You don’t need to do that.”

“Oh, sorry.” Right, billionaire tech genius. Of course there would be a dishwasher. “Hey, Mr. Stark… where’d you learn how to cook?”

“Hmm? Oh, my mom taught me how. I mean, I don’t do anything more complicated than this or pasta, but… when I was younger, everything was done for me, and I think she understood that I wanted to be able to do things myself sometimes. So, she taught me how to cook. Basic stuff, of course… but something I could do myself.” Mr. Stark looked like he was thinking deeply for a moment, but he snapped himself out of it. “I started cooking whenever I got too stressed and needed a break from building. Not that it’s much different from building, to be honest.”

Peter had learned far more about Mr. Stark in one day than he had the entire time he’d known him up to that point. It was fascinating. Knowing these things made it easier for Peter to understand Mr. Stark. He didn’t seem as distant now.

“Alright, Peter, you should probably at least get changed before your aunt gets here, but first there’s something I want to ask you about.”

He instantly got nervous. What could Mr. Stark want to know about that they hadn’t already talked about? “Uh, yeah, what’s up?”

“How did you sleep last night? Any nightmares?”

Oh. “No, actually. Last night was good.”

Mr. Stark sighed. “I’m glad, but… Peter, I understand if you don’t want to talk to me about your nightmares, but you should talk to someone. I made the mistake a long time ago of internalizing things like that, not getting help, and now it’s really hard for me to open up to anyone. Don’t let that happen to you, okay?”

Peter wasn’t expecting that. He knew Mr. Stark got nightmares, but… this made it sound like his were as bad as Peter’s. “Okay. I won’t.”

Mr. Stark seemed to relax slightly when Peter said that. “Alright, now go get changed. You stink.”

“I don’t stink as much as you do!” Peter called as he headed towards his room.

“Oh, you’re going to regret that!” Mr. Stark shouted back before Peter was out of range.

\---

May was a little later than Mr. Stark had predicted. Apparently Happy had picked her up, because Peter could hear the two of them arguing about traffic, but he couldn’t focus on it for long because May pulled him into the tightest hug he’d received since the incident in DC.

“Oh my god, Peter! You had me worried sick!” May exclaimed, and Peter felt guilty immediately.

“I know, I’m so sorry, May. I promise I won’t let it happen again.”

She pulled away from their embrace and placed her hands on Peter’s shoulders. “If you  _ ever _ do anything like this again, I’m never letting you leave the house.”

“Okay! It won’t happen again!” Peter insisted. He’d go insane if May didn’t let him out of the house.

Mr. Stark chose that moment to walk back into the room. “Hello, Mrs. Parker,” he greeted. “I hope you’re not too mad at me, but I decided that I would rather have the yelling get done now so I can work on apologies, so I came to find you two.”

May gave him a look of pure disbelief before laughing slightly. “I’m not mad at you. No yelling here. You couldn’t have possibly controlled this.”

Peter was completely shocked. Apparently so was Mr. Stark, because they both exclaimed “Really?!” at the same time.

She smiled. “Mr. Stark, if it wasn’t for you, Peter would probably still be missing right now.”

“Uh, it was actually my fault that he was-” Mr. Stark stopped mid-sentence when Peter glared at him. “Actually you know what? You’re right. You’re welcome for saving your nephew.”

“Does this mean I’m still allowed to go to Disneyland?” Peter asked, unable to contain his question any longer.

May looked confused. “Disneyland? What?”

“Oh, uh… I may or may not have been planning on taking Peter to California with me for some experience and decided that while I’m there I might as well take him to Disney. You know, as a late birthday present or something,” Mr. Stark explained.

“You what?!” she exclaimed. “Mr. Stark, I can’t just… let you take my nephew to Disneyland with no warning! And without my permission!”

Peter sighed. He knew that this was going to happen. He should have accepted it sooner so that he wasn’t as disappointed now.

“What if you come with us?” Mr. Stark offered, and Peter got excited again. “I can easily get another ticket. Would he be allowed to go then?”

May thought about it.  _ Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes… _ Peter begged. He really really wanted to go to Disneyland and he knew that this was probably his only chance to go.

“Okay… but only if you promise me that you stay on the ground while we’re there. No Spider-Man stuff in a place you’re not familiar with,” she told Peter.

He almost started bouncing up and down with excitement. “Thank you so much May! Oh, and Mr. Stark! You guys are the best!” He pulled May into another hug. Part of him wanted to reach out and pull Mr. Stark in with a web, but he knew that he’d be pushing things way too far if he did that.

Peter let go suddenly when he realized that May had never been inside of the training facility. “Oh, Mr. Stark, can I show Aunt May around? She’s never been here before and I want her to see everything!”

“Sure, why not. FRIDAY, give May Parker access to everything that Peter has access to.”

Peter grinned. “Thanks, Mr. Stark!” He grabbed May’s hand and started pulling her towards the rest of the building. “Wait until you see my room, it’s amazing!”

\---

When May had been given a thorough tour of the training facility and looked like she was ready to collapse, Peter brought her back to where Mr. Stark had waited for them and she promptly collapsed in a chair. “Peter, couldn’t you have slowed down at least once?”

“Sorry, May! I was just excited!”

She smiled. “It’s alright, I had fun. This is… wow. I just… I never thought I’d ever be in a place like this. And then my nephew had to decide to become a superhero, and, well, here I am!”

“You’re practically an Avenger now,” Mr. Stark joked.

“Hey, she gets to be an Avenger when I’m not even one?!” Peter exclaimed.

“I gave you the offer! You could be an Avenger right now if you’d said yes!”

Peter rolled his eyes. “I thought that I was mature for not saying yes?”

“It only counts as mature if you don’t bring up wanting to be an Avenger every five seconds!” Mr. Stark shouted back.

May watched this exchange with an amused look on her face. When they stopped, she said, “Oh, please keep going, this is the most entertained I’ve been in weeks.”

Peter wasn’t embarrassed. No, his face was just red because it was hot. Yeah. “Hey, it’s almost lunch time, and I’m starving. Can we get something to eat soon?”

“Uh, yeah, hold on for a little bit, kid. Why don’t I take you and your aunt to get some lunch, and then Happy can take you guys home?” Mr. Stark offered.

Before May got a chance to respond, Peter said, “That’s a great idea! Can we get Thai? I haven’t had Thai in a really long time, Mr. Stark, and I’m kinda craving it right now!”

May shrugged. “You really don’t have to take us to lunch, Mr. Stark.”

“No, I know. But Thai sounds good. Happy?” he called, and Happy stuck his head in from the room next door. “Come on, we’re getting food.”  
“We?”

“Yes, we. Now come on, the kid said he’s starving.”

\---

Lunch was nice. Mr. Stark managed to remain unnoticed this time, proving that he was better at going unseen in public than the incident at the ice cream parlor would suggest. May seemed to be a lot less hostile towards Mr. Stark, and actually seemed to enjoy the time spent with him. It made Peter happy, because the two most important adults in his life were finally starting to cooperate and agree.

As they were finishing up, Peter asked Mr. Stark, “Can we do this again sometime?”

“What, getting shot in the shoulder?” Mr. Stark asked, quietly enough that nobody but the three of them could hear it.

Peter rolled his eyes. “No, getting lunch like this.”

“Oh, so my cooking isn’t good enough for you now, huh?” Mr. Stark asked.

It was so tempting to roll his eyes again. “We get pizza nine times out of ten and you know it, Mr. Stark.”

May was laughing quietly. “You guys sure do like teasing each other, don’t you.”

“Well, this one here,” Mr. Stark said, and much to Peter’s surprise, he reached over and messed with Peter’s hair a little, “is the most annoying kid I’ve ever met and I’m not exactly sure why I keep him around.”

Not too long ago, Peter would have taken Mr. Stark’s words seriously. Now, though, he could tell when Mr. Stark was joking and when he was serious. “Because you’d be so scared that I’d kill myself by tripping over my shoelaces if you left me alone that you physically can’t,” he supplied.

“Oh yeah, that’s right.”

May laughed again, and this time Peter joined him. Even Mr. Stark smiled.

It almost felt like a family, Peter thought. A strange, different kind of family, but one that Peter didn’t want to give up for anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that was nice and happy, wasn't it?  
> If only good things lasted, huh?
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who's commented, you're all amazing.


	9. A Long Day (or Two)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life was never normal anymore, and you'd think that Peter would be used to it.  
> Unfortunately, life has a habit of throwing all the things you want the least right in your face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI PLEASE FORGIVE ME THIS TOOK FOREVER  
> Also the next one might be a while too because school is starting up for me again in a few days and I got a new job so I'm probably going to be too stressed and busy for a while. I hope I can get the next one out somewhat soon but that probably won't happen, I'm sorry.  
> ALSO! This fic is nowhere near done! I'm not sure quite how long it will end up being but once it's reaching the end I will let you guys know!  
> Thanks again to my datemate, who you can find on tumblr: theartsyskeleton.tumblr.com  
> If you want to come talk to me, I made a side blog for writing! You can find me at thanosisnotagod.tumblr.com :)

_ I can’t breathe. _

_ I can’t breathe! _

_ It’s crushing me, the building is crushing me. _

_ I can’t escape! I can’t get out! _

_ Help! _

_ Please… _

Peter knew where he was. He was trapped under the collapsed building, wearing his old suit and begging for someone to save him. He’d had this dream enough times to know what was coming, but every time it was terrible.

_ All the strength was leaving his body. He tried to lift the remains of the roof, but he couldn’t move his arms. He was being crushed. His ribs were crying out under the pressure, threatening to break. He could feel the tears streaming down his face. _

_ I’m going to die… _

_ Someone… _

And then his dream changed.

_ “You should have said yes, Peter,” the voice of Tony Stark echoed around Peter. “Only a coward would turn down the chance to be an Avenger. You told me no when I needed help. I was counting on you and you let me down. You’re a failure.” _

_ No, he wanted to say. I didn’t let you down. I’m helping you. You’re training me. Just because I’m not an Avenger doesn’t mean that I won’t help. _

_ But he couldn’t speak. _

_ Peter could see familiar images. Missing person reports, car crashes, robberies, murders, all things that had been on the news in recent months. All things that Spider-Man could have stopped, but that he didn’t. _

_ “If you had been an Avenger, none of this would have happened,” Mr. Stark said. _

_ You’re right, he wanted to shout. I know. I’m sorry. _

The dream faded and he was somewhere else.

_ “Peter…” a familiar but strained voice called out. He looked down to see Aunt May lying, injured, bleeding. “Help…” _

_ He rushed to her side but didn’t know what to do. She looked broken and like she was on the edge of death. He could… what could he do? He didn’t have his web shooters so he couldn’t even stop the blood… _

_ She stopped moving. _

_ It was all Peter’s fault. _

_ He’d lost the last family member he had left. _

_ A voice echoed around the void Peter found himself in: Who are you to call yourself a hero when you can’t even save the people you love? _

_ Then he saw more injured figures, people who he cared about, living out their final moments. He saw Ned, then MJ, then Mr. Stark. He saw the people he loved dying and he couldn’t save them. _

And then he woke up.

\---

Peter had suffered through enough nightmares by that point, so he didn’t scream.

He did, however, have a mild panic attack, and as a result had to text Ned and MJ to ask if they were okay. He also couldn’t fully calm down until he saw that May was okay, either. Part of him wanted to call Happy and ask him to see if Mr. Stark was okay but he knew that he shouldn’t call Happy this early and that Happy would never bother Mr. Stark for him.

“Is everything okay?” May asked. Dammit, he must have been worse at hiding it than he’d thought.

He nodded as he stuck a piece of toast in his mouth. “I’m just worried about a test today.”

She frowned. “You never worry about tests.” She had a point. The only time Peter really worried about anything school related was during exam season. It was very unlike him to get anxious over a test.

It had been a few weeks since Mr. Stark had talked to him about not internalizing things. He knew that he was right, but… who was he supposed to talk to? Aunt May? No, she worried about him enough already. Ned? As much as he loved his friend, he knew that he wouldn’t understand. Mr. Stark? Ha. What billionaire had time to listen to a kid’s problems, especially if they were as dumb as this?

So he didn’t tell anyone.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Peter? This isn’t about anything else, right?” May asked. “Did anything happen while you were out last night?”

Peter shrugged. “Nothing unusual. And I’ll be fine, but I gotta go or I’ll be late for school.” He grabbed his bag, quickly gave May a hug, and ran out of the apartment before May could ask any more questions.

Because Peter was too much of a coward to face his problems, right?

\---

Peter was getting ready to head home from school after Academic Decathlon practice. Everyone was hanging out and talking after the practice, but Ned had already left, so Peter was talking to MJ.

“Do you have any ideas for what you’re going to do Mr. Adam’s essay on?” Peter asked as he stuffed things into his bag, being careful to not show his suit.

MJ shrugged. “I’ll probably do it on the history of women’s rights. Or historical LGBT figures. Something like that, probably teach him something.”

Peter smiled. “You’re the only person I know who’s able to teach the teachers stuff. I mean, we go to this insane science school so the teachers know a lot…”

“Knowing what’s required to teach a high school course doesn’t mean that you can’t be ignorant.”

Yeah, that was probably true. Peter once again thought about how lucky he was to have such cool and smart friends. As he was getting ready to put on his backpack, his phone vibrated. He looked down and felt his eyes widen in shock. A number that he only had in his contacts for “extreme emergencies only, nothing else” was calling him.

Yeah, Tony Stark. Tony Stark was calling him.

“Uh, sorry, I have to take this,” he said to MJ. He didn’t miss the way she looked at him like she already knew all of his secrets. But he turned around and answered the call.

“-UCK!” Peter heard the cut off swear as he answered the phone. “Underoos, I thought you’d never pick up!”

“What’s going on?” Peter asked, trying to keep the panic out of his voice but failing.

“Aside from the fact that I’ve been dying and you’ve been too busy to answer my calls for some reason, not much.”

Calls? “Wait, have you been trying to call me? I was at... wait- WAIT, DYING?!”

“Yeah. Get your ass over here, I need you. I’ll have FRIDAY send you my location.” 

“Wait, you aren’t supposed to be-” Peter tried to say, but he was cut off.

“My arm doesn’t matter, just get over here!”

Peter was torn between freaking out over the fact that  _ Tony Stark _ asked him for help for the first time since Germany, getting worried or upset because Mr. Stark went against the doctor and did Iron Man stuff before his arm was healed, and panicking because if he needed help, things must be bad.

He heard the beep and looked down at his phone. Mr. Stark had hung up. Peter could now see how many calls Mr. Stark had sent him: 17, across almost 45 minutes. He cringed. Mr. Stark must really be in trouble.

“Uh, I have to go…” Peter said, noticing the weird look MJ was giving him. He realized that the rest of the Decathlon members who hadn’t left yet were looking in his direction as well and he remembered that he had shouted “WAIT, DYING?!” into his phone. Oops.

He panicked, so naturally, he ran out of the room and didn’t look back.

Sprinting through the hallways, he held his breath, hoping he didn’t get caught.

He did.

He ran straight into Flash Thompson, of all people.

“Where are you going, Penis?”

Peter was already in a panicked state, but Flash appearing increased his anxiety by a hundred times, at least. “Let me through, Flash,” Peter said, and tried to push past him.

Suddenly, his spider-sense went off and he knew Flash was about to shove him a moment before he did. He didn’t usually get physical, but there were no teachers around and he assumed that Peter would be an easy target. Peter dodged out of the way, unable to risk getting shoved and revealing that he could resist it, or getting held up any longer. Unfortunately, he dodged right into a locker, and his spider-sense went off once again as Flash caught his arm. He could have avoided it, but it would be too fast and inhuman for Flash to not get suspicious, especially since he was weak little Peter.

“Where are you in such a hurry to get to, Parker? What, did your aunt get hurt?” Flash taunted, referencing the phone call, and Peter felt a rush of anger cut through his anxiety.

“It’s none of your business. Let me go.”

Flash smiled. “Wouldn’t it be terrible if a tragedy happened that kept Penis from competing, like, oh, I don’t know, the loss of another family member? I seem to remember you disappearing for months after your uncle died. And if I’m right, your aunt is all you have left. If she died, maybe you’d be forced to switch schools. The foster system certainly wouldn’t keep you here just for school if they didn’t have to.”

Hatred was coursing through his veins. How dare Flash say something like that? He didn’t know anything. He didn’t understand the guilt Peter had to live with every day, guilt over the lives of the family he’d lost. And, sure, May was fine (as far as Peter knew), but knowing that Flash would react this way if she was hurt, or sick, or dead, it made his blood boil.

He used his free hand to shove Flash away, using just a little bit of extra strength, planning to blame it on adrenaline if he was asked. Ducking under his hand, he sprinted for the exit, but he could hear Flash racing after him. He panicked even more, knowing that he would have to lose Flash if he wanted to get into his suit, but he heard a third set of footsteps coming up behind them. Flash shouted and Peter guessed that the third person had injured him somehow, and he risked turning around. He saw an out-of-breath MJ gasping next to Flash, who was bent over and had his hands holding the area between his legs.

Holy shit, had MJ done that?!

She shoved him to the ground. “Don’t get up,” she told him, before taking a few steps towards Peter. “Whatever’s going on, go.” He opened his mouth to say something, but she shooed him away. “Don’t explain, go!”

He nodded and continued his journey. He burst through the door of the school and sprinted through the surrounding area until he got into a shadowy area. Rushing, since he had already wasted a ton of time and Mr. Stark needed his help, he almost tripped trying to put the suit on. When he finally did, instead of Karen greeting him, he heard the voice of his mentor.

“ABOUT TIME! What were you doing, daydreaming?!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, I-”

“Save it, just get over here.” Mr. Stark sounded tired and… maybe injured. Peter looked at the small display of a map showing Mr. Stark’s location. He was close to Peter’s apartment. He shot a web and launched himself into the sky, going as fast as he could and cursing the lack of taller buildings in this area.

“So what’s the problem, Mr. Stark? What kind of fight are we looking at?”

“The fighting is over, Peter. Or, it should be, but be careful anyways. I need your help for another reason.”

That confused Peter, and he almost fell out of the sky as he got distracted. Why would Mr. Stark need his help if it didn’t involve fighting? But then he cursed himself, realizing how dumb that sounded. Why would Mr. Stark call him if it  _ did _ involve fighting? He wanted to keep Peter out of it. Close to the ground, friendly neighborhood stuff, that was Peter’s business. If it was something that Mr. Stark was handling, it was above Peter’s level. “Well, what do you need help with?”

“My suit has been damaged. Pretty much the only thing left online is the communication systems.”

Peter tried to think. “So you had to ditch the suit and now you’re stuck in Queens? Why would you call me then?”

“I can’t get out of the suit. Or move. That’s my problem.”

Oh. “Alright, Mr. Stark, don’t worry. I’ll be there really soon.”

He heard Mr. Stark say something quietly to himself, but he couldn’t pick it out, even with his enhanced hearing. That was more the fault of the coms, though. The static covered it. “We need to find a faster way for you to travel, kid.”

“Maybe we can worry about it later. I’m almost there.” It was true, he could see the location Karen indicated approaching. There was dust in the air and Peter could feel the anxiety returning. He could see the familiar landmarks around, but one was missing… an old abandoned apartment building, not too far from where he lived, was gone.

No, Peter realized as he got closer, it wasn’t gone… it had collapsed.

Peter’s display lit up with the outline of Iron Man’s armor. Of course, because the universe likes to be cruel, he was lying under the rubble.

“Mr. Stark, I’m here! Are you trapped down there?” Peter asked, hoping that the answer was no.

He wasn’t lucky. “Yeah. I’m just glad that I got all the civilians out before it caved in.”

“Okay, I…” Peter could barely breathe. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Look, kid, you’re super strong, so I need you to dig me out of here.”

That made sense, Peter supposed. He started lifting up pieces of broken roof, letting Karen direct him so that he didn’t move the wrong way. Memories of the time that it had been him who was trapped flashed through his mind, and he slipped, dropping the heavy chunk he had been holding. Everything shifted and he heard Mr. Stark swear before his suit filled with the sound of static.

“Mr. Stark?!” Peter shouted.

“Mr. Stark is offline,” Karen told him.

“Oh, great,” he said, and he kept working. He wouldn't let Mr. Stark experience this alone the way Peter had only a few months ago. He thought he was making progress, but he had no way of knowing how Mr. Stark was doing anymore, and that terrified him. He could feel the signs of a panic attack, but he shoved them down, forcing himself to work even faster.

Minutes later, he saw something red and metallic shimmering in the sunlight. He moved the last few chunks out of the way, wincing when he noticed a sharp piece lodged into the armor, and he could now see the uncovered form of Iron Man lying on his stomach, damaged. “Hey, Mr. Stark! Mr. Stark, can you hear me?”

There was no answer.

Peter took a deep breath and listened. He could hear Mr. Stark’s heartbeat and his breathing, but it was shallow. “Karen, is it okay to move him?”

He didn’t even wait for an answer. He flipped Mr. Stark over and could barely breathe when he saw that the eyes of Iron Man, that were usually glowing, had turned off. The suit must have been damaged really bad.

He had to get Mr. Stark out of here. They were only a few blocks from Peter’s apartment, so it would probably be best if Peter brought him there. Picking up Mr. Stark while in his armor would have been nearly impossible for any normal person, but for Peter, it was almost too easy. The hard part would be not dropping him. Binding them together with some webbing so that both of his hands could be free, Peter took off towards his apartment.

He was lucky May was working late. He didn’t feel like explaining at the moment.

Landing on the side of the building and being careful to not hurt Mr. Stark any further, he pushed the window open and gently slid him inside before following.

_ Someone saw you _ , his mind shouted, but he told it to shut up.  _ Mr. Stark is dying, too. What will you do when he dies and it’s Spider-Man’s fault? How can you be a superhero if you can’t save him? _

“There has to be a way to open the suit…” He said to himself, and to his delight, Karen scanned the suit to find him a hidden button wedged between two overlapping parts of the armor. He pried them apart and pressed it, and the suit split open.

_ Shit, that’s way too much blood, _ Peter realized as his hands stained red. “Mr. Stark?” he said, hoping that his mentor would wake up. What he got was a pained groan, which was only a slight relief.

Peter took out his phone and called Happy.

“What do you need, kid?”

“Happy! Mr. Stark is hurt, I brought him to my apartment and he’s kinda conscious? But he’s also really injured, a building collapsed on him…” Peter felt his fears returning.

_ Crushing, crushing, crushing. Pain, too much, it hurts, someone help! Someone help me! It hurts, I can’t breathe, I can’t, I can’t, can’t, can’t… _

He forced himself to inhale deeply. “I got him out of the suit, but it was broken really bad, I’m sorry…”

“Calm down, I’m on my way.” And then Happy hung up.

Peter sighed, setting down his phone and running to the bathroom to grab his first aid kit. He used it a lot when he got minor to moderate injuries before May found out, and it helped him out a lot, but Mr. Stark didn’t have enhanced healing like Peter did. He probably needed to get to the hospital or something. Peter would try to help him out as much as he could, though.

Mr. Stark let out a hiss of pain as Peter tried to clean out one of the bigger cuts. The armor had dug into his skin in several places and it looked painful. Mr. Stark jerked away. “Shit, kid, that stings.”

He was relieved when Mr. Stark said that, because it meant that he was awake, but he didn’t want to hurt him more.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark. Should I stop?”

He weakly shook his head. “Hey, kid, keep doing what you’re doing and I’m gonna take a nap real quick, okay?”

“No! No, Mr. Stark, stay awake, please? Mr. Stark?” But his eyes had closed again and he seemed like he had no intention of opening them any time soon.

Peter stared out the window for a moment, praying for Happy to hurry up, before getting back to work on the injuries. He had no idea how to judge how stable Mr. Stark was, but he seemed pretty bad. What if he had lost too much blood? What if there was an internal injury that Peter didn’t know about?

What if Mr. Stark died?

If someone had told him not that long ago that there would be an injured unconscious Tony Stark lying on his bedroom floor who had trusted Peter with his life, he would have laughed in their face. But now, it wasn’t even close to the weirdest thing that had happened in his life.

However, it was easily one of the worst.

\---

Tony woke up in the medbay feeling like absolute shit.

_ What else is new, _ he thinks bitterly. He looks around to find that there is nobody else in his room, and he relaxes a little. He hates it when people see him like this, especially in the stupid hospital gown. It wasn’t painful, he noticed, and he could see the IV, but he was tired and moving felt wrong. Weird.

Well, he wasn’t going to stay in the hospital bed, that’s for sure, so he sat up and carefully removed the IV. He pushed his feet over the edge of the bed and stood up.

Instantly he felt lightheaded.  _ Great idea, _ he thought,  _ if you pass out, they’ll keep you here longer. _ He steadied himself and examined his injuries. Bruised ribs, maybe broken, and his arm was once again in a cast. Plenty of cuts and bruises, and he guaranteed that if he looked in a mirror that he would look like shit. Just another day in the life of a damaged genius trying to make up for his mistakes.

He opened the door to the room and stepped into the hallway. They always kept the medical side of the compound spotless and it kinda freaked Tony out a little, even though he knew why they kept it that way. Fortunately, there weren’t many doctors around. There was no need for them, since most of the Avengers had disappeared and the others weren’t around often. He was easily able to escape.

Heading for his lab, planning on ways to make his  and Peter’s suits crush-proof, he found a certain spider kid hanging out on the wall upside-down.

“Shit, kid, don’t scare me like that,” Mr. Stark said, and the next thing he knew, there was a weight on him. The painkillers were still doing their job, so it didn’t hurt, but it startled Tony. He looked down and saw Peter clinging to him, and he could feel hot tears soaking through his hospital gown. He realized that the kid was sobbing.

“I- I didn’t- I didn’t know if you were going- going to be okay,” Peter said, almost whispering, between sobs. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark…”

Tony cautiously wrapped an arm around Peter. The only people he had ever hugged before were Pepper and Rhodey, and that wasn’t even really hugging. Not like the way the kid was hugging him. There was far more physical contact than Tony ever thought he would be comfortable with, but it actually wasn’t too bad.

Peter seemed to notice where he was and what he was doing, because he suddenly jumped back as if he had been burned. “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark! Please don’t be mad, I’m sorry!”

“Pete, it’s okay.” And it was. The hug had been almost nice. Tony was sad that Peter had freaked out that much.

“I didn’t mean to hug you,” sniff, “I was just scared.”

Tony hesitated for a moment, then put an arm around Peter’s shoulders. “It’s okay, kid. Hey, you saved my life. I think that calls for some slightly uncomfortable, ‘I can’t believe I almost lost you, I couldn’t live without you Mr. Stark’, physical affection stuff.”

Peter’s face flushed. “That’s not true,” he said quietly, but he did not sound convincing at all. He wiped away some of his tears, but they were still streaming down his face. He was slightly smiling, though.

They walked together to Peter’s room and Tony realized that the blankets had been messed up. “Did you sleep here?” Tony asked.

Peter nodded. “I, uh, called May and she let me stay here until you woke up.”

The kid wouldn’t have wanted to go home. It was a Friday- well, now it was Saturday, Tony assumed, so the kid didn’t have to worry about school, but the kid was a walking anxiety disorder so he probably wouldn’t have made it through a school day anyway. “And did you get any sleep?” Tony asked. Peter shook his head, looking ashamed. “You look like you’re about to pass out. Can you get some rest now that you know I’m okay?”

Peter looked down. Tony took that as a no.

“More nightmares?” he asked, and he knew he got it right by Peter’s reaction. “Look, you don’t have to talk to me, because I suck at this kind of stuff, but you need sleep, Peter.”

“I know. It’s just hard. Every time I close my eyes… or even if I don’t close them, sometimes…” Peter’s voice faded, like he didn’t want to go on. The tears, that had barely stopped from earlier, were returning and Tony could physically see Peter fighting them back.

Tony inhaled deeply. “It feels like you’re there,” he finished, and Peter nodded. “Bad things that you’ve gone through, it seems like they’re happening again, or they’re still happening, and sometimes they’re different, or worse. It never stops. Never fades.” Peter looked at him, apparently shocked. “And then you feel weak, or dumb, because it’s over, right? It’s not real, so why is it bothering you so much? And you worry that if you tell someone, they’ll think less of you.”

“You… feel like that, too?” Peter asked.

Tony paused, but he had already spilled enough to the kid, and he also owed him for saving his life. “Yeah. I do.”

Peter took a shaky breath. “It’s… it’s my fault that my uncle died.”

Whatever Tony had been expecting, this wasn’t it. God, talking was hard. Emotional talks were even worse. He didn’t comment, though, and he let the kid continue.

“I had just gotten my powers, you know, and I wasn’t sure what I was doing, really. And there was this guy… a bad guy, and I didn’t stop him, because I was tired and I really wanted to get home. And I wasn’t really doing hero stuff yet because it hadn’t really crossed my mind. But… that guy, he attacked, uh, he had a gun, and he tried to attack someone else? I think to rob them or something? But my Uncle Ben, he jumped in the way to stop him, and he…”

Peter didn’t have to finish. The tears were flowing again and Tony had no idea what to do.

To Tony’s surprise, though, Peter opened his mouth again and kept going. “I see him. In my dreams. Those used to be the worst ones, but then… then I started being Spider-Man, and I have dreams about the Vulture and everything that happened there, like getting trapped under the building-”

“What?” Tony said. He knew nothing about Peter getting trapped under any buildings.

Peter nodded. “It was when you took my suit away. Don’t worry, I was fine.” Tony cursed himself. He was never ever taking away the suit again. In fact, he was going to perfect the Iron Spider suit so that if Peter ever got into a situation where his current suit wasn’t good enough, he could send the new one to him to save him. “Any- anyways… I also worry about, uh, May getting hurt, because I already lost my parents, and then Uncle Ben… and I worry about my other friends, too… and I worry about you getting mad and thinking I’m a failure or you getting hurt and leaving me alone and I didn’t know what to do when you got trapped because it was like everything was happening all over again but it was worse because you were the one stuck instead of me!” Peter said the last part quickly and Tony almost didn’t catch everything. When what he had heard registered, Tony felt guilty. If he had known about Peter’s own experience, or his fears of Tony getting hurt, he wouldn’t have called him for help.

“I’m… I’m sorry, Peter.” Tony said. Apologies were never something that came easily to him but this was one instance where he needed to. He cautiously opened his arms, offering Peter another hug, before he was fully conscious of what he was doing. The kid gave him a look, as if to say “are we there yet?”, and then carefully slid into the embrace. He avoided Tony’s injuries as best he could and was far more gentle this time, careful to not use any of his super strength and injure Tony further. Tony was tense at first, not knowing how to relax, but he eventually got used to the sensation and released the tension. He rubbed Peter’s back, and a memory of his mother rubbing his back after a particularly bad argument he’d had with Howard resurfaced. The pain of the fight was something he could have done without remembering, but his mother’s comfort… how had he forgotten that?

“Thank you, Mr. Stark,” Peter said, slightly muffled by the fact that his head was resting against Tony’s shoulder.

“You’re welcome, kid.”

Yeah, they were definitely there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AGAIN: THIS IS NOT OVER!!! They've made a lot of progress in their relationship but there's still a ton of time before that raisin shows up.  
> One more time, if you want to come talk to me, you can find me at thanosisnotagod.tumblr.com!  
> Thanks for reading and all of the comments!


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